Frostbitten Heart
by The Last Kunoichi
Summary: Don't be absurd, Tenten," I told my friend. "He's just a mean, arrogant fatalist with a frostbitten heart, and that's all he'll ever be!" That's what I thought at the time. Oh, how wrong I was. NejixOC P.S.:I don't own Naruto
1. I remember

**A/N: Well, this is my first try at writing a NejixOC story. I'm praying I won't blow it... By the way, my Oc's past may seem pretty Mary-Sue-ish right now, but have no fear, it will get less Sue-ish throughout the story. I promise.**

**Anyway, here it goes:**

**--**

Someone once asked me to sum up my childhood in one word. I puzzled over the question for some time, but then I finally figured out the perfect word for my past: Stressful.

Well, it wasn't stressful for the first eight years of my life. I lived in a nice, warm home with my mother, my father, my older sister, and my two younger twin brothers. I remember being a care free girl, dreaming about becoming a great ninja, which is why I got my paretns to enroll me in the Academy when I was six. I remember playing ninja with my older sister, Riko, even though her heart wasn't set on becoming a shinobi. I remember my mom's home cooking and my dad's bear hugs. I remember life being fabulous for me.

Then, when I turned nine, such an awful event occured that it's haunted me until this very day.

Both Mommy and Daddy were Hidden Leaf Shinobi and had to go away on missions from time to time. Once upon a B ranked mission, they had to go to the Marsh Country as escorts for some fancy-schmancy celebrity. Unfortunately, while travelling through the Marsh Country, my parents encountered what I consider far worse than enemy shinobi. Something you're bound to find in any marshy place.

Mosquitoes.

Both Mommy and Daddy arrived back home with a number of bug bites on their arms and legs. I remember asking Daddy if he lost too much blood from the bites apprehensively. Daddy laughed and told me to not worry about the bites, and that they would be gone in a few days.

How wrong he was.

About three or four days after returning from the Marsh Country, Mommy and Daddy got sick. They had fevers, chills, and joint pain. Before they had left, Mommy had a cold, and was already a little sick, and Daddy suspected it turned into the flu, and he had caught it too.

"Nothing some bed rest and orange juice can't fix," he had said.

But bed rest and O.J. didn't cure them. My parents were ninja, but they were not medical ninja, and didn't recognize what they were really affected with until Mommy had severe head aches more frequently than usual, and Daddy found out he had something called blackwater fever, which, according to my aunt, a nurse at Konaha hospital, is a result of kidney failure.

After these symptoms developped quickly, it didn't take a medic to recognize something was seriously wrong. My mother was the one who had figured it out after reading an article in a health magazine my aunt had left at our house one day: Her and my father had a horribly severe case of malaria.

I over heard Mommy and Daddy talking that night. Apparently, malaria was caused by a bite from an infected mosquito from a tropical or marshy place.

"Naoki, we have to get to the hospital now!" Mommy had said to Daddy, close to tears. "I-If we don't, and the malaria's spread too far in our bodies, we-we c-could-"

"Hold on, Emi," Daddy interrupted Mommy. He walked over behind the couch, and peered over the top, seeing me crouched on the floor, rather scared and confused. I thought Daddy was going to get mad at me for listening in on their conversation, but he didn't. Instead, he beckoned me to follow him.

"Come, Kayami," he said to me. "It's time for bed." I left my hiding place and followed my father upstairs to my room. He tucked me in bed, and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

"Are you and Mommy okay?" I asked him, cuddling my teddy bear. "Will you get cured?" Daddy gave me a forced smile.

"Kayami-chan, we'll be fine, it's just a little sickness," he lied. "Mommy and I are going to see the doctor's in a little while. Riko's going to be babysitting you tonight, and when we get home tomorrow, we'll be as healthy as we ever were."

"Okay," I yawned, believing that everything was going to be alright. "Goodnight, Daddy."

"Goodnight, Kayami," he said, leaving my room.

Hours later, I was woken up by a huge clap of thunder. It shook the foundation of my house. I leapt out of bed and looked out my window.

I had never seen such a thunderstorm that occured in the Leaf Village in my life. The rain came down in dense sheets. I could barely see the streets, which were so flooded that no cars could be driven on them. Forks of lightning lit up the sky, and the thunder boomed for the whole village to hear. Scared, I ran out of my room, and downstairs, looking for Riko or my parents to sooth my fears.

The living room was pitch dark, and I remember I couldn't see a thing unless the lightning lit up the room for me. One thing I could see without the lightning, though, was the candle light that shone through my parents' bedroom door which stood slightly ajar. I crept up to the door, and peeked in the room.

In the light the candles gave off in the bedroom, I remember seeing Mommy and Daddy lying in their bed, and Riko sitting on a chair next to them, tears streaming from eyes which had become two blue faucets.

"Mom, Dad," she croaked. "Isn't there any way that-"

"No, Riko-chan," Daddy said, feebly. "There's no way anyone is going anywhere in a thunderstorm like this... I'll bet the hospital isn't even open considering the hour and the weather..."

"But, you can't die!" Riko exclaimed, sobbing. "You can't!"

"Riko-chan, shhh..." Mommy cooed as she took my twenty year old sister's hand. "You'll wake the twins and Kayami."

"There's no avoiding it, dear," Daddy murmured. "Within a couple of minutes... We'll be over and done with..."

Riko broke down, and buried her face into her arms on my parents' comforter. Mommy was the first to go. Then Daddy. All that time, I was outside their bedroom, crying like a little baby.

A couple of days later, after the thunderstorm blew over, and the street became passable again, Riko and I attended Naoki and Emi Tsuji's funeral with the rest of the family while my twin brothers, who were just babies at the time, were left with a sitter. I remember I would not stop crying, even after the funeral was over.

Despite the death of my parents, I still attended the Academy, still hoping to become a ninja. I made many friends there, but my best friend was a girl named Tenten. She was nice, pretty, and excellent with weapons. She was pretty sympathetic too. I remember she'd comfort me when my parents died. I felt very lucky to have a friend like Tenten. Without her, the stress of my parents' death and my school work would break me.

Three years passed, and I became a graduate along with many other classmates of mine. I was hoping to be in a team with my best friend, but she got put in a team with two other boys who I didn't really associate with.

I was put in a squad with two boys and a jounin sensei, like all the others. One of my team mates was Katsu Togashi. He was a short boy for his age. He had dark hair, and bangs that were usually pressed against his forehead by his headband. He usually wore a light coloured t-shirt over a dark long sleeve. He was a nice boy, but was rather clumsy.

My other team mate was named Akio Mizuto. He had light green eyes and spiky, dirty blond hair. He wore his Leaf bandanna around his neck, and wore a short sleeve jacket unzipped to reveal a shirt bearing the kanji for 'ninja' on it. He was a little obnoxious at times, but was a very good fighter.

And my sensei, Shinto Ishikiwa, was a twenty five year old jounin with a gruff manner, but a good heart. He had brown eyes and dark brown hair. He wore a green jacket, like all the other jounin, under a blue long sleeve and sweatpants.

This was my team, Team Shinto.

I remember being thrilled when I became a ninja, and when I met up with my team that day, I was on cloud nine. But, Shinto-sensei brought me back down to earth after we introduced ourselves.

"I hope you kids are ready to prove yourselves," he told us. "Because if you don't, you're getting sent back to the academy."

"What!?" I cried.

"Are you kidding!?" Katsu exclaimed.

"Of course he is!" Akio said, confidently. "Why would we be sent back to the Academy? We already passed our graduation exam!" Shinto-sensei gave Akio a look.

"Did you, now?" he asked. "Well, I hate to burst your bubble, kiddo, but preforming one measely technique for your teachers won't make you a ninja. That test was made just to eliminate the hopeless cases in your class."

I couldn't believe it. I got very worried. How exactly did our new sensei intend to make us prove ourselves worthy of being good ninja? We soon figured it out.

Shinto-sensei put us through a tough obstacle course that ran through a good portion of the training grounds. We had two hours to complete it.

Sounds easy, right? Wrong. It wasn't just your average obstacle course. We had to overcome not only things like tall wooden walls standing in our way, or swing from a rope over a raging river. Shinto-sensei had been kind enough to cast gen-jutsus all over the course so we often either got lost or ended up fighting amongst ourselves. Other times we would encounter enemy ninja, which turned out to be our leader's shadow clones. It was very nerve racking indeed.

Maybe it was a fluke, or miraculous fate, but just before two hours were up, Katsu, Akio, and I stumbled through what felt like a forest of poison ivy, and fell flat on our faces at Shinto's feet, who was waiting for us at the end of the course. He laughed when he saw us.

"So, you three managed to complete the obstacle course," he chuckled. "Well done, team. You pass."

Despite being covered in poison ivy, I couldn't have been happier. I remember jumping up and cheering. I remember Katsu and Akio joining me. I remember telling Riko and the twins, Tabito and Kouta, when I got home.

I remember.


	2. Kayami's Destiny

"Goodbye, Katsu! Goodbye, Akio!" I called, waving to my two team mates. "I'll see you later!" I turned back around, and started walking down the the street. My team and I had just finished our missions, and I was on my way back home to Riko, who had become my legal guardian when my parents kicked the bucket, and Tabito and Kouta, who were now both seven and in the Academy, striving to be the best shinobi they could be.

I had walked only a couple of feet down the road when I heard my name being called. I turned around to see my best friend since my academy days approaching me, cheerful and freindly as always. I smiled at her too.

"Hi, Tenten," I said. "Done your missions today?" She nodded.

"Yeah, I was just on my way to the training grounds," she said. "I had to run home first, though. I kinda forgot my sais at home." I laughed and rolled my eyes. Tenten was a nice girl, but she could be forgetful sometimes. It was a good thing she kept a lot of weapons on her, because she was always forgetting one weapon (in this case, her sais) from her collection.

"How like you," I said with good humour. "If you're going off to train, I suppose the missions didn't wear you out too much today?" Tenten shook her head, her bangs swishing infront of her dark eyes.

"No, they were only D ranked missions," she said. "I have to admit, though, I was getting pretty tired of hearing the two boys bicker all day. And my sensei didn't help things." I raised my eyebrows.

When we both began our careers as genin, Tenten had told me her team mates were quite interesting: She had our class' number one rookie, Neji Hyuuga on her team, and that kid who couldn't do nin or gen-jutsu, Rock Lee. Aside from the Hyuuga boy and the determined, bully victim, Tenten had also reported her jounin leader was quite the character as well. I had never met Might Gai at all, but from what my friend told me, I didn't want to, for fear of laughing uncontrollably when I did.

A weapons mistress, the number one rookie in our graduating class, a near failure, and a hyper, over-the-top sensei. What a team Tenten was put into.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"Well, as you know, Neji and Lee have this rivalry thing going on," Tenten began, "so all day they've argued over who could do what without the other's help. Of course, Gai-sensei didn't do a thing to stop their arguing; I don't know how many times he's told Lee that having a rival is a good thing. In my opinion, it's getting pretty irritating, and I'd rather not have the boys at each other's throats all the time."

I nodded. Months ago when I first became a genin I'd always scold Akio for being obnoxious, and he'd always tell me to not be his mother. Eventually, we worked out our differences, and things are okay between us now. Maybe that's all Tenten's team mates needed: Time to sort out their differences.

"Hey! I got an idea!" Tenten said, switching the subject. "Are you free this afternoon?"

I thought for a minute. "Yeah, I think so. Why?" I asked.

"Why don't you come train with me and Neji?" Tenten offered. "We usually train while Lee and Gai-sensei are off practising their tai-jutsu."

I nodded and accepted her invitation. I was over due for some training anyway. I followed my friend to the training grounds, ready to practise my nin-jutsu. I also anticipated training with the number one rookie in our class. Like I said before, I didn't associate with Neji Hyuuga in our academy days, and wondered what he was like.

The training field was a wide open, grassy space. A few targets were scattered about the place. I knew Tenten often practised her weapon accuracy on them. Many of the targets had dents and holes in the bulls eyes. I smiled. My friend had always had a good aim.

"Hi, Neji!" Tenten called, waving her hand. I turned my attention away from the targets and looked at Tenten's team mate approaching us.

I hadn't seen many of my old classmates in months, being busy with my team's missions and all, and I noticed Neji had changed since the last time I saw him. He was a bit taller than me now. He also looked pretty in-place with his Leaf headband tied around his forehead. I smiled and was about to say hello, but when he stopped walking in front of us, he wasn't smiling.

"I thought you'd be here sooner," Neji said, addressing Tenten.

"Sorry, I forgot my sais at home," Tenten said. She reached into her sleeves and drew the two, small sword-like weapons known as sais to show the Hyuuga prodigy. "And then I met Kayami on my way here. Can she train with us?" she added. Neji gave me a glance with his plain white eyes, then looked at Tenten.

"Fine," he said. Tenten, Neji, and I walked towards the middle of the field and began to practise our moves and techniques. Tenten started her training off by launching a couple of kunai and shuriken at the targets surrounding the field. Neji was practising a few tai-jutsu moves some distance from us. I was molding my chakra, keeping my hands glued in a ram seal.

After practising my replacement jutsu, a transformation jutsu, and some simple tai-jutsu, I heard Tenten say, "Alright, I'm warmed up! Let's help each other with our own techniques now!" Unsure of what she was talking about, Neji and I joined her near a target she was leaning on, and I asked her what she meant.

"What me and Neji often do," Tenten started, "is help each practise our own individual techniques. I'll throw weapons at him, and he'll repel them. Get it?"

"You mean, we have a mock battle?" I asked. Tenten nodded.

"It's a bit like that," she said. "The only difference is we don't intend to hurt each other badly." Tenten looked up at her team mate. "Why don't I start off with you, then I'll fight Kayami, then she'll fight you." Neji nodded, silently. I walked away, giving my friend and her comrade space to fight, and recommenced molding my chakra as I watched them.

The battle between the two started out fine. Tenten launched many pointy things one after another at Neji, but he dodged all of them. It was quite amusing to watch. Then, Tenten called, "Are you ready, Neji?!", and he gave her a curt nod. With that, Tenten jumped in the air and threw so many weapons at Neji, I could barely count them all. Kunai, shuriken, senbon needles, knives, kamas, and any other weapon you could imagine came flying at Neji from all directions. I gasped.

"Tenten, what're you doing!?" I cried. "That's too many! He's not going to be able to dodge all of those!" In truth, I was right, Neji didn't dodge all those weapons. Instead, he parried the attack by doing something I've never seen anyone do before. He spun on his heel, and a shield of chakra enveloped him. It repelled the weapons and they came flying back at me and Tenten. Yelling, I dropped onto the ground, on my stomach, to avoid the weapons whizzing over my head. Once everything was safe, I looked up and Tenten and Neji in disbelief.

"What was that!?" I cried.

"Eight Trigrams Palms Rotation," Neji said, sounding as if I had just asked him what colour the sky was.

"It's a technique belonging to the Hyuuga clan," Tenten explained to me, as I got up off the ground. She walked over to me. "Neji releases a big amount of chakra and spins to create the shield, counteracting my attacks," she said to me. "It's such a special technique that it's only taught to the Main Branch of the clan, but Neji learnt it by just watching."

"Really?" I asked. I turned to Neji. "That's amazing!"

"Naturally," the Hyuuga boy said, stand-offishly. I was taken aback. I simple 'thanks' would have done it.

Forgetting my annoyance, Tenten and I began to spar. Like most battles, we started of with a bit of martial arts, then moved into the use of weapons and jutsus. After dodging a myriad of Tenten's kunai (_Where does she get all these things? _I wondered, jumping out of the way of a blade flying my way), and using some simple nin-jutsu, mine and my friend's battle came to an end.

"Your getting faster, Kayami," Tenten said, gathering up her kunai knives on the ground. "But you have to not use your replacement jutsu so much. You'll use up too much chakra."

I made a face. "But I'm good at replacement jutsus!"

"I'm just giving you advice," Tenten retorted, giving me one of her 'don't-be-so-over-sensitive-I'm-just-trying-to-help' looks. I sighed.

"Okay, fine, you're right. Sorry." That's what my problem was. I was too sensitive when it came to constructive criticism or tough love. I had been like that since the beginning. Even a simple 'laugh at yourself' joke got me worked up. Once when I was seven I was wearing a large, foam cowboy hat, and my dad told me I looked like I belonged in the loony bin. I started to cry when he said that. Not that I would cry at a joke like that nowadays, but I still didn't like to be laughed at.

I approached Neji, and gave him a ready look.

"I'm anxious to spar with the number one rookie of my graduating class," I said, smiling. Neji looked back at me passively.

"Sorry, but I'm not so anxious to defeat such a mediocre ninja," he said, calmly. My jaw dropped.

"_Mediocre!?_" I cried. "I passed the graduation exams with flying colours!" I didn't want to sound conceited, but honestly, he called me mediocre!

"But with how many colours, if I may ask?" Neji asked. I blinked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked him. He sighed, irritated.

"Forget it." The arrogant boy closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. While they were closed, the skin around his eyes and temples stretched, and his blood vessels bulged. Neji opened his eyes, and I could see his pupils, which were usually non-existent in his plae eyes. I raised my eyebrows.

"What's wrong with your eyes?" I asked. Neji looked put off.

"There's nothing _wrong _with my eyes," he snapped. "This is the Hyuuga clan's kekkei genkai, Byakugan. Don't you know anything?" I glared at him.

"I'm not part of the Hyuugan clan, you know," I scowled.

"Whatever. Are you ready to fight?" Neji asked, taking up a fighting stance. I followed suit.

"Oh, you know I am!" I said, smiling confidently.

"Good." With that, Neji poked me in the right shoulder with his index and middle finger. I looked at him.

"Ow!" I cried. "What was that for!?"

"That was my attack," Neji said, impatiently.

I furrowed my brow. "That wasn't much of an attack." Neji glared at me.

"You fool," he hissed. "Do you realize I just closed off one of your chakra points?"

"You what!?" I cried, becoming more confused by the second.

"With the Byakugan, I can see your opening points where you release chakra from your body," Neji said. "With my Gentle Fist technique I just used on you, I closed the opening, and now you can't emit chakra from that point. A single tap is all it takes." I glanced at my right shoulder.

"Well, that sucks..." I muttered.

"C'mon, Kayami!" Tenten called from the side of the field, encouragingly. "Try again!" I turned to my friend and smiled. She was always very supportive.

"Okay," I decided. Seconds after that sentence, Neji decided to poke my left shoulder with that stupid Gentle Fist technique of his again, without a heads-up. I snapped my head around and grabbed my left shoulder.

"Ow!" I shouted. "I wasn't ready!"

"Well, be ready," Neji growled. I shot the insolent boy my best death glare.

"You know, you really could be a little nicer to me," I suggested, coolly. Neji closed his eyes, and the Byukugan disappeared, his pale eyes returning to normal.

"It's not my fault your unalert," he said. I frowned.

"I'm not talking about just that!" I snapped. "I meant your attitude about everything! I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't be so mean to me." Neji only scoffed.

"Again, not my fault," he said. "One must be treated like what they are, for if you keep lying to that person, it will be harder for them to accept the truth once they figure it out."

"And what am I?" I challenged, disliking this boy more and more.

"I told you before: You are mediocre," Neji told me, matter-of-factly. "You are a mediocre ninja, with mediocre potential, and a mediocre attention span. One who is average will always be average. There's no changing it."

"Says who!?" I asked, outraged.

"Try the way of life," the Hyuuga brat answered, simply. "No one can escape their destiny. Not even you, Kayami Tsuji." I couldn't believe this boy. I was expecting the year's best rookie to be a little less hoity-toity than this. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Is that what you think?" I snarled. "Well, listen here, 'cause I got news for you-"

"Well, the day _is_ getting on," Tenten said, hurridely rushing into our argument. She had an uncomfortable grin plastered onto her face as she tried to break up our dispute. "Kayami and I better be going. Nice training today, everybody."

"Tenten, stop it," Neji scolded her. "I know you're trying to break up our disagreement, but I have the feeling that Kayami needs to hear this." I was ready to give that kid a swift kick in the shins.

"You know what, Neji Hyuuga-!" I began to yell at him, but Tenten grabbed my hand, and pulled me away as she walked. She turned back around to wave to her team mate.

"Bye, Neji! See you tomorrow!" she called. She continued to drag me from the training grounds, and only let go of me once we were walking down the street towards our homes. We walked surrounded by an awkward silence until I broke it.

"I don't like him," I decided. Tenten heaved a heavy sigh.

"Come on, Kayami!" she said, exasperated. "I've been dealing with Neji and Lee fighting all day long, I don't need my best friend squaring off with him, now!" I blew one of my orangey-red bangs that covered my Leaf headband from my forehead.

"It wasn't completely my fault," I said. "Your team mate was acting like a total jerk!" Tenten was silent for a minute.

"Look," she said, after a pause. "I know Neji can be hurtful, and it's not nice, but you also have to learn to not be so sensitive. If you have a thicker skin, Neji won't get to you as much." It was my turn to sigh.

"Yeah, I know, but it's hard," I said. "I've been over sensitive since I was little." Tenten shrugged.

"With a little will power, I'm sure you'll be able to make the transition," she said. I smiled.

"I'll try," I promised her. Tenten and I neared the corner on Main Street where we said goodbye, and started off home.

--

**And there's chapter two. Thanks for reading! More on the way.**


	3. In the Doghouse

"You got in my way!" I yelled, losing my temper.

"No, you weren't looking where you were going," Neji snapped, narrowing his eyes at me. "Unalert as usual."

"Stop saying that!" I shouted. "Stop deciding things about me! You don't know me!"

"You don't know me either," Neji growled. "Do you even realize who you're talking to?"

"Yes! A cold, haughty boy who-" I began, but Tenten cut me off.

"Will you two stop it!?" she demanded, stepping between me and Neji. "You're giving me a headache!" I sighed, remembering for an instant how I ended up in this irksome predicament...

--

It had been weeks sincemy training incedent with Neji. I approached the entrance doors of the Hokage's office where my team was waiting for me. Akio was leaning casually on the side of the building, while Katsu twiddle his thumbs. Shinto-sensei was no where in sight.

"Hi, guys," I said, raising my hand in greeting. "Where's our teacher?"

"Obviously not here," Akio said. He stretched his arms up over his head and yawned widely, not bothering to cover his mouth.

"He should be here soon," Katsu said, checking his watch. "Shinto-sensei's pretty punctual. Not like poor Natsuki's old sensei." Akio and I nodded gravely. Natsuki Takashi was a boy in our class who got sent back to the Academy along with Gaku Hideaki and Megumi Fujikage because they didn't pass their sensei's test after they became genin. According to them, it was near impossible. I had never met their old sensei, but often, I now watch out for a masked man who's notorius for being late, as Natsuki described him, when I'm out.

A couple of minutes later, Shinto-sensei met us outside the Hokage's office and entered the building to recieve our missions for today. We met the kind old man sitting at his desk with various scrolls laid out neatly before him. He smiled from beneathe his wide brimmed hat when he saw us.

"Well, if it isn't Team Shinto," he said. "Come for your missions today?" We nodded.

"Are we gonna go on a dangerouser mission today, Lord Hokage?" asked Akio, hopefully. "Huh? Huh? Are we?" I decided not to inform Akio that 'dangerouser' was not a word, and told him to calm down. He reminded me that I wasn't his mother. Our old habits occasionally resurfaced from time to time. They die hard, you know.

"Well, I've got a good list of missions for your team right here," the Third said as he unrolled a small, simple, white and red scroll. He read out the missions for us to choose:

_1. Babysit Mr. Daisuke Toyama's two children_

_2. Help Miss Hanako Saito with the groceries_

_3. Find Akira Kochi's lost pet_

_4. Do Mr. Itaru Hiroshi's laundry_

"These are all D ranked missions!" Akio exclaimed, making a sour face.

"Might I remind you that we did go on a C ranked mission last week, Akio?" Shinto-sensei said, some annoyance lacing his voice. It was true. We had to escort a well known authour to Otafuku City. We got attacked by some road side bandits along the way. They had no fighting skill whatsoever, and I don't think I had seen Akio so happy as he beat the snot out of them since he passed the graduation exam. He remembered this too and sighed.

"Alright, fine, we'll do a stupid D ranked mission," he muttered.

"You sound like I was giving you a choice, Akio. I wasn't," Shinto said, still sounding a little annoyed. I wasn't the only one who got irritated by Akio at times.

Katsu, Akio, and I looked over the missions list and decided on finding Akira Kochi's lost pet. The Third Hokage approved, and showed us a picture of the pet we were looking for: A small, one year old puppy with fluffy white and brown fur, and a red collar around his neck. With that, he dismissed us, and we set off to look for the lost little dog.

Once outside, and with the help of Shinto-sensei, we came up with a plan: Split up around the Hidden Leaf Village and look everywhere for the puppy. If we spotted something that even remotely looked like the puppy, call each other on the radio, and pursue it until we catch it.

We decided to split up in the directions of the compass. Shinto-sensei would look North; Katsu, South; Akio, East; and I looked west. After our plan was set, we bounded off in search of the puppy dog.

I ran down the street as fast as I could, taking in my surroundings and scanning around for anything small and fluffy with a red collar. I had no such luck. I decided to ask around. I hurriedly entered the bookstore and ran up to the counter, rudely butting ahead of some poor woman carrying two heavy hardcovers to the counter.

"Excuse me, sir," I panted, as I looked up at the store owner, who was standing behind the desk. "Have you seen a small puppy anywhere lately?" The man thought for a minute.

"Sorry, kid, I haven't," he said, shaking his head. Without even a 'thanks anyways', I rushed out of the shop, and back onto the street. I know, I know, I was pretty rude, but I had to find that dog.

After running around, and asking people if they had seen the lost dog or not, I had begun to lose energy, and motivation. I looked everywhere on the West side of Konaha, but I saw no signs of the dog. I sighed, out of breath. I hadn't even gotten a call from any of my team mates reporting a puppy sighting.

Just as I was about to call them and ask them how their search was going,Katsu's normally soft voice blared excitedly from the walkie-talkie clipped to my hip.

"Akio! Kayami! Shinto-sensei! I see the puppy!" he cried, my walkie-talkie making an annoying crackling sound. My motivation and energy went from low to high when he said that, and I started to run off in an South-ward direction. I unclipped the walkie-talkie from the waist band of my capris and held down the talk button.

"I hear you, Katsu, I'm coming in your direction right now," I said into the speaker. After that, I heard Akio's voice from the radio.

"Yeah, me too, Katsu!" he said.

"The dog's heading towards the public park!" Katsu reported, panting. "Head there!" I didn't bother to respond, and only concentrated on running towards the park.

The public park of Konaha was a large forest-like park with a lot of trees and a long staircase that encircled the place. Sometimes I'd like to train there, put it was mostly for people just looking to relax or walk their dogs. If we were lucky, the puppy would find a doggy friend to play with and it would give us time to catch up to him.

Before long, the park came in sight. I felt a sudden burst of energy, and picked up my pace, weaving in and out through people as I ran. Along the road, I saw Akio up ahead. I ran up to him. We exchanged no words, and only kept our eyes pealed for either Katsu, our teacher, or the puppy.

We entered the park, and soon spotted Katsu running through the trees, in pursuit of a fluffy little animal that was some distance ahead of him. It was our lost dog we were looking for. Akio and I sped up, running past various civilians, trying to catch up to the puppy.

The three of us thundered through the forest-y park, keeping our eyes only on the dog ahead of us. I forced myself to run faster. I got closer to the puppy. I could see a red leather collar around its neck. This was definitely the dog we were looking for. I forced myself to go even faster. I was a little ahead of Katsu and Akio. I was going to get the dog. I was within each of him. If I could just-

"Kayami! Look out!" Akio screamed, pointing ahead of me, but it was too late. I was so concentrated on the small pup on the ground, that I didn't see who was getting in my way. I crashed right into somebody else, knocking them down. They had their arm stretched out, so I was fortunate enough to run into their arm, go flying over it, and land hard on the ground, on my back, getting winded. Katsu and Akio dashed passed us and continued to pursue the dog. Akio instructed me to catch up to them over his shoulder as he ran.

I coughed and groaned as pain shot through my back. I wasn't even thinking about the million grass stains that I had now earned on my short sleeved kimono. Suddenly, some one ran over to me.

"You okay, Kayami?" she asked. I looked up.

Tenten was standing over me, and offered her hand. Confused, I took it, and she pulled me up. I looked around.

My friend was with her team. I nearly let out a yell of surprise (if I had, it probably would have sounded more like a grunt due to my lack of oxygen at the moment) when I saw the near failure of my graduating class, Rock Lee. Gone was his short sleeved kimono, similar to my own, and his uneven hair. Instead, he was wearing some weird, green jumpsuit, that did not compliment his natural looks at all. Not to mention his hair was now cut and even, in a bowl shape. He was identical to his teacher, with the exception of his sensei wearing a flak jacket like most Hidden Leaf jounin. Still, it was quite a change from what he used to look like.

"Hey, where's...?" I began, but my question was answered, when Neji got to his feet and gave me a cold glare.

"Watch where you're going," he snarled. I returned his glare.

"I was. You got in my way," I said. Neji shook his head.

"No, you were so busy running as if you were being chased by a wild animal that you didn't see me." He crossed his arms, and stared me down. I got confused.

"What? I asked.

"I'm waiting for an apology," he said.

"Apology!? If anything, _you_ owe _me_ an apology! You're the one who got in my way!" I yelled, loosing my temper.

"For the last time, no, you weren't looking where you were going," Neji snapped, narrowing his eyes at me. "Unalert as usual."

"Stop saying that!" I shouted. "Stop deciding things about me! You don't know me!"

"You don't know me either," Neji growled. "Do you even realize who you're talking to?"

"Yes! A cold, haughty boy who-" I began, but Tenten cut me off.

"Will you two stop it!?" she demanded, stepping between me and Neji. "You're giving me a headache!" I sighed, remembering for an instant how I ended up in this irksome predicament...

--

Before I knew it, I was back with my own team, holding a squirming, but achingly adorable puppy in my arms who was desperate to lick every inch of my face. Me, Akio, and Katsu stood near Shinto-sensei while he talked with Tenten's sensei, Gai.

"I'm awfully sorry about Kayami," he said. "I hadn't realized her and Neji were so uncooperative together."

"It's no matter, Shinto," Gai said, giving him the thumbs up. "Actually, their argument brought back memories: I remember arguing like that with Kakashi in our academy days." He smiled. "Ah, teenaged rivalry. Nothing like it to keep them on their toes, eh, Shinto?" Shinto 'sweat-dropped', as some may say. He didn't think Neji and Kayami were rivals, he thought they just plain didn't like each other. Despite that, he didn't promote being argumental with fellow shinobi, but then again, this was Might Gai he was talking to.

"Alright. we better be off now," Shinto said. "So long." With that, my team and I walked off back to the Hokage's office, where I gave a little girl with a tear stained face her puppy back. It made me feel better about myself after that argument with that Hyuuga brat. Mission complete.


	4. Guys and Dolls

**Hi, everyone! Thanks for the reviews, KittyLo9 and roseandthorns19. Here's the next chapter:**

**--**

One thing I've always loved was being in a deep, yet still concious, sleep undistrubed. It was relaxing. I never wanted anything to wake me up before I emerged from that drowsy state. However, you couldn't always get your way in life, and one morning about five days after my run in with Mr. I'm-too-good-for-anyone-so-I'm-going-to-belittle-you-instead, Riko decided to shake me awake, jostling me out of my relaxing deep sleep.

"Kayami, wake up," she said. I groaned into my pillow, not wanting to wake up. With some effort, I rolled over onto my back, and looked up at my sister standing over me with bleary eyes.

Riko looked a lot like an older me. She had the same long, orangey-red hair with the long bangs. The only difference is she didn't keep her hair tied up like me, nor did she wear a ninja headband behind her bangs. But she had the same blue eyes, and roughly the same facial structure.

"Wuzzamadder?" I mumbled.

"It's eight o' clock," Riko said, pointing to my clock that hung near my bedroom door. "Aren't you meeting your team at nine?" I nodded.

"Well, hurry and get ready," Riko said, walking out of the room. "I'll make you breakfast." With that, she was disappeared down the stairs. I sighed, and dragged myself out of bed, stepping on one of my brothers' ninja action figures they left in my room as I did. Ouch.

I made my way down the hallway and into the bathroom where I brushed my hair and tied it up, and brushed my teeth. I went back into my room to get changed.

It had taken forever to get the grass stains out of my kimono, but eventually they disappeared. I put on my top, and my beige capris, and of course, my Leaf headband. Once I was satisfied with my appearance I went downstairs where a bowl of mushy cereal was waiting for me, along with two brown haired and brown eyed seven year olds fooling around with their toys.

I sat down at the table and began to eat my cereal, watching Tabito and Kouta play with another one of their action figures. I was too tired to scold them for leaving their other action figure in my room. I sighed, my head nearly dropping into my breakfast. I shouldn't have stayed up until eleven thirty last night reading, but my book was just so interesting!

Unfortunately, Riko noticed my being 'out-of-it'.

"Kayami-chan, you look tired today," she said, sitting down next to Kouta with half a grapefruit in her hand. "Were you reading last night?"

"Maybe," I said, uneasily. Riko gave me a look.

"Out with it, sister, I know you were," she said. "Tabito told me when he got up to go to the washroom, he saw your light on through your bedroom door." I shot one of my little brothers- the one with the red shirt with the kanji symbol for 'fire' on it- an annoyed look, and he snickered, along with his twin.

"Tattle tale," I said to Tabito. He laughed loudly this time.

I quickly finished up my breakfast and left to go meet my team near the Hokage's office again. When I arrived, I found only Katsu waiting there. I greeted him.

"Hi, Katsu," I said. "Akio and Shinto-sensei not here yet?" Katsu shook his head.

"No, but we're five minutes early," he said, checking his watch. "They should be here soon."

Ten minutes passed. Neither Shinto or Akio had come yet. Katsu and I began to get worried. Suddenly, I saw Akio come running down the street, and up to us, out of breath and looking worried.

"Sorry I'm late," he panted. "My alarm didn't go off." He looked around the place, and furrowed his brow. "Where's Shinto-sensei?" Katsu shook his head.

"No idea," he said. I sighed and slumped agianst the wall.

"This is really unlike Shinto-sensei," I said, looking up at the sky. "Usually he'd be here on time." We waited around for another two minutes, until Akio spoke.

"Well, maybe he's in the office already, waiting for us?" he suggested. I smiled. Despite being obnoxious, Akio could be really smart. I followed the two boys into the building, up a few flights of stairs and up to the Third's office door. I raised my fist and knocked on it three times.

"Enter," I heard the Hokage's voice call. I opened the door, and led Katsu and Akio into the office. We weren't the only ones in there.

Although it was not our teacher, off to the side of the room stood Tenten and her team. She smiled at me and waved. I waved back.

"Hi, Tenten," I greeted her cheerfully. I was about to turn to the Hokage sitting at his desk, when I caught Neji's eye. He gave me the look over and scowled. I made an indignant "hmph!" sound and stopped in front of the Third's desk.

"Ah, there you are," the old man said, smiling at me and my team. Akio got right to the point.

"Hey, have you seen Shinto-sensei anywhere, Lord Hokage?" he asked. "We've been waiting for him, but he still hasn't come."

"Correction: Kayami and I were waiting. You were late," Katsu told his team mate. Akio rolled his eyes and muttered, "Whatever." The Hokage chuckled.

"I'm afraid your sensei's been called away on a mission," he told us. Akio gasped.

"Are we going on a mission by ourselves, Hokage-sama?" he asked, excited. The Hokage laughed again.

"I'm sorry, Akio, I'm afraid your first B ranked mission should not be carried out without the help of a jounin leader," he told him. "That's why for this mission I'm putting you with another team." I gasped, and glanced at Tenten and her team. My friend smiled widely and nodded. I felt a large smile split across my face too. My first B ranked mission with my best friend. What could be better?

"So, we're going with them?" Akio asked, gesturing towards Team Gai. The Third nodded.

"Would you like to know what your mission is?" he asked. Akio jumped up and down like a child on a sugar high.

"Oh, yesyesyesyes!" he said.

"You're going to have to find a doll." Akio's face immediately fell.

"A... doll?" he repeated, blatantly disappointed. The Hokage nodded.

"One that a powerful kunoichi in this village owns," he said, not at all bothered by Akio's discouraged look. "On that doll is a very large secret of the Hidden Leaf, which cannot be discovered by the man who stole it, or else the consequences for Konaha will be dire." I smiled. This sounded like an interesting mission. The village leader continued.

"You'll be looking for a man named Nagaharu Takeda," he explained. "He may not be a shinobi, but he has a bunch of rogue ninja under his command. He's a rich business man and owns a luxurious hotel in Tanzaku City. Your mission is to go impersonating civilians and retrieve the doll from his hotel and return here with it."

"Why would a business guy want a stupid doll?" Akio asked, crossing his arms. "For a grown man to steal a doll... Makes me wonder, you know what I'm saying?"

"Nagaharu's known for collecting antiques," Lord Hokage explained. "This missing doll is very old. Nearly as old as the secret it holds."

"And how much are we getting paid to go find a child's toy?" Akio pressed. I smacked him upside the head, making him yell out.

"Don't be rude," I scolded. Honestly, couldn't this kid be a little more polite? Especially to our village leader? I turned back to the Third, smiling.

"We'll bring back that doll," I promised. The Hokage smiled.

"Good," he said. "Off you go, now. Good luck to both you teams."

--

"Wow, I can't believe my luck!" I said as I walked down the street towards the village gates with Tenten. "Who'd have thought I'd get to go on a mission with my best friend?" Tenten smiled along with me. Suddenly, I heard Katsu and Akio snickering, and trying to hold their laughter in, behind my back. I turned around.

"What's so funny, you two?" I asked them. Katsu had one hand over his mouth, and Akio had both on his mouth, trying to keep from bursting out laughing. Katsu regained a bit of composure and spoke to me.

"I-Is that really the kid that nearly failed our graduation exams? Rock Lee?" he asked me, pointing up ahead to where Lee and Gai were walking. I looked at them.

"Yes... Why?"

Akio snickered from behind his hands. "What happened to him?" he asked. "He looks like a stick of celery that got burnt on the top!" With that, both boys laughed loudly, unable to keep it in any longer. Tenten glared at them.

"Oh, hush up," she told them. "You know, it's not very nice to laugh at someone like that." I was about to add to that, but before I could even open my mouth, a familiar, superior-sounding drawl spoke first.

"Tenten, sooner or later, Lee will see what other people think of him, whether that be his clothes or his abilities," said Neji, who was now walking on the other side of my friend. "Why beat around the bush?" I rolled my eyes into the back of my head. The only downer on this trip was knowing I was stuck with the Hyuuga brat for the mission. I made a promise to myself not to try and clash swords with him this time, but it was too late.

"I saw that, Kayami," he told me. I looked at him.

"What?"

"I saw you roll your eyes."

I made a face at him. "Am I not aloud to do something without your consent, Your Highness?" I asked, viciously. Neji glared at me.

"Fool. I know very well your rolling your eyes because of what I said. I'm tell you now, don't try and cover up either your tracks or anyone else's. My eyes see all." I gave him a look.

"So, what? Your God now?" I snapped. "I don't care about what you see and don't see."

"You will once I catch you doing something red handed," Neji threatened. Tenten, who had been caught in the middle of this argument, pushed us both away from her, and addressed us.

"Will you guys _stop it!?_" she demanded. "I'm not going to do the whole mission listening to you guys argue, you got that?" She turned to her team mate. "Neji, it's bad enough listening to you and Lee, I don't need anymore from you and Kayami." Then, she turned to me. "And, Kayami, what of that promise you made to me and yourself? Enforce it, please!" With that, Tenten left in a huff, joining Lee and her teacher up ahead.

I sighed, wondering while I walked how in the world I was going to bear the Almighty Neji Hyuuga for a couple of days.


	5. Supper Time

I yawned widely into my hand as I continued to walk down the dirt path. We were about two hours away from Konaha now. If I had known I'd be going on this mission, I wouldn't have stayed up all night reading. Oh well. I brought it on myself.

_Why do they have so much energy? _I wondered, as I watched Lee and Gai walk with the fast pace they had maintained since we left the village. Yeah, I know, I probably sounded like an old lady thinking that, but who wouldn't be tired after a night of reading a deeply intriguing adventure novel?

Some time after we left the village, Tenten had forgiven me, and decided to continue walking with me, but Neji hadn't. He had walked a little faster, and was now ahead of Tenten and I, but still behind Lee and Gai. When he had his back to me, I stuck my tongue out at him. He either didn't see me or decided to ignore me.

While we walked, I had to either listen to Akio and Katsu talking about how they wished they had their own harem of girls following them around, like some new rookie that just recently graduated from the Academy, or I had to listen to Lee and Gai talking about certain training exercises, or what made a good, youthful martial artist. Both conversations were starting to annoy me (especially Akio and Katsu's). Tenten and I had talked until there was nothing to talk about, so I decided to daydream a little bit.

I imagined myself as a strong, beautiful, brave kunoichi like the one in my book. I imagined myself tall, slim, with my orangey-red hair let loose down to the middle of my back, and my blue eyes bright, and fierce looking. I imagined myself cutting down the most awful enemy ninja in my path with ease. I imagined coming back to my village as a hero.

I sighed. It was too bad I wasn't the beautiful, skilled kunoichi I was in my book. I shrugged it off. I was happy with myself as it was. All I had to do to become better was to try my best.

--

Hours later, dusk crept upon us, and even though Lee and his teacher wanted to continue on through the night, we eventually convinced them to stop and rest at a nearby inn.

After our day of walking, we had made it to Otafuku City where we decided to stay at one of its many inns. It was on a street that was called Fun Fun Street, which was a pretty lively and a little bit crowded, but I didn't mind. I liked crowds.

After checking into our rooms, we spent some time sitting on the beds and talking. I was in a room with my two team mates, Teten was in the room next to us with her team as well, and our jounin leader was in his own room.

My room was pretty simple. There were three futons aligned in a row on the tatami mats covering the floor, a dresser to the right side of the room, and a door that led to a quaint bathroom on the left. A large window over looked Fun Fun Street, letting in the remaining light the sinking sun would give off.

"Dang, my feet hurt," I said, taking off my sandals as I sat on my futon. "I'm glad we managed to convince your teacher to stop for tonight, Tenten, or else they would have fallen off!"

"We were lucky," Tenten said. "Often Gai-sensei wouldn't stop for anything on a mission like this."

"Still, maybe we should have listened to him and not stopped," Akio said, as he looked at a map of the Fire Country he had in his backpack. "We're still a town away from Tanzaku City. The longer we take to get there, the longer this Nagaharu guy will have to discover the secret that's on that dumb doll."

"Peace, Akio," Katsu said, quietly but sternly as he sorted through the contents of his waist pouch. "You may think finding a doll is dumb, but in truth, this is quite a serious situation: If we let our secrets fall into enemy hands, then who knows what will happen to Konaha."

I nodded to Katsu's words. "Besides," I added. "What good is wearing ourselves out today and not having the energy to carry out our mission quickly and quietly tomorrow?"

"You got a point," Akio said, as he flopped onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Suddenly, the door opened, and Tenten's two team mates stepped into the room. I refused to look at Neji, but I did say hello to Lee.

"Hi, Lee," I said, raising my hand. He gave me and my team a curt nod.

"Kayami Tsuji, Akio Mizuto, Katsu Togashi," he said, "I have not seen you seen graduating. It has been a while."

"You got that right," Akio said, his voice quivering from trying to hold in his laughter. Katsu snorted, but passed it off as a sneeze, so not to get caught laughing as well. Angrily, I threw my pillow at them, and gave them a look that told them to shut up.

During our Academy days, Katsu and Akio weren't the ones who bullied Lee about his inability to preform nin-jutsu and gen-jutsu, but, like most of the kids, they would notice his appearance (most often, his thick eyebrows), and sometimes laugh about it. But Lee's radical change in style sent my team mates over the edge. I, too, thought Tenten's comrade looked goofy, but if I were in his shoes, I wouldn't want to be laughed at.

Lee sat down with us next to Tenten on the tatami mats, but Neji remained standing, leaning against the door. I glanced at him and refrained from rolling my eyes.

_Probably thinks he's so cool, _I thought, bitterly. _I'd bet anything he looks in the mirror every morning asking his reflection, "Who's pretty? Who's pretty? I'm pretty!" _I giggled aloud. Everyone in the room looked at me.

"You okay, Kayami?" Katsu asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I snickered.

--

About half an hour later, I was sitting at a table in the inn's dining room, waiting for my supper to come. Meanwhile, everyone had broken up into their own separate conversations around the table: I talked with Tenten; Katsu and Akio talked with each other; Lee talk with Gai; and Neji remained silent, not bothering to even speak with my two team mates, whom I don't think he minded all that much.

"Recently the class that was a year younger than us graduated," Tenten told me, drumming her fingers on the table. "My little cousin's one of them. She was so happy when she got her headband."

"Really?" I asked. "Good for her."

"Along with my cousin was Naruto Uzumaki," Tenten said. "You know, the boy who-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know him," I interrupted, nodding. Who _didn't_ know of Naruto Uzumaki? He was the problem child of Konaha, and the host of the Nine Tailed Fox demon that attacked our village when I was only a year old. The Third Hokage had forbidden us to talk about it, which was why I interrupted Tenten before she could go on.

My friend glanced down the table and continued to talk. "Oh, and Neji's younger cousin graduated as well." I made a sour face.

"Is he or she as egotistic as him?" I whispered so that Neji wouldn't hear.

"No, actually, I've met her once before, and she's a sweet, quiet girl," Tenten whispered this as well, but I didn't know why. She gave me a look."Kayami, do you think the whole Hyuuga clan is egotistic? Because if so-"

"Tenten, I don't think that," I murmured, sincerely. "I was just curious to know if any other Hyuugas ride on their high horses, or if it's just Neji."

"Now, Kayami, you must understand that Neji-" Tenten began, but was cut off by her sensei talking to us.

"Hey, girls, you're telling secrets at the table?" Gai asked us. Knowing that whispering at the table was bad manners, we looked at the odd ball teacher from across the table, and shook our heads.

"No, Gai-sensei," we answered in unison, like the good little girls we were. We weren't gossiping about the new rookies. We weren't talking about one of the most powerful clans in Konaha behind its back. I wasn't undermining Neji at all. Nope, not us. I gave a fake smile.

"We're just talking quietly so not to disturb the other people eating here," I explained as convincingly as I could.

"Alright then," Gai said, shrugging. He went back to talking with Lee. I relaxed. For a minute, I thought I was going to get busted for whispering about one of my fellow comrades behind his back.

Gai-sensei may have bought my cheesy excuse, but Neji hadn't.

"Liar," I heard him mutter quietly. I looked up at him and found him eyeing me from across the table. I glowered at him.

"What say you, Hyuuga?" I asked him. I hoped using an old saying would throw him off, and shut him up, but I had forgotten that that boy was a genius.

"Come off it, Tsuji, you may have Gai-sensei fooled, but not me," he said in a low voice. "I saw right through your little excuse. You weren't talking quietly so not to disturb the other people here." He gave me a some what triumphant look. "I told you, my eyes see all." Before I could come up with a snide come back, Tenten hurriedly jumped in.

"Okay, okay, Neji, you got us," she said, hoping to keep us from fighting yet again. "We _were _telling secrets... Oh, look! The food's here!" She sounded as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. Despite poor Tenten's efforts, Neji and I still glared at each other.

_"Know-it-all," _I mouthed. He read my lips and narrowed his pale eyes at me.

_"Loser." _My glare hardened as my supper got set down in front of me. I would have said thank you to the waitress, but I didn't want to break eye contact with my enemy. I had a feeling he knew what Tenten and I were talking about before.

_"Smart alec."_

_"Washout."_

This was getting very immature. I hadn't called anybody names since I was ten. I decided to finally break eye contact with Neji and eat my supper before it got cold. I turned to Tenten and gave her a painful smile.

"How's your sashimi, Tenten?" I asked her. She grinned and nodded as she swallowed what she had in her mouth.

"Very good," she said. "And your nikujaga, Kayami?"

"Exquisite," I said, pretending to be a fancy, well known gourmet. I popped a single potato in my mouth, and I nearly gagged. The cook hadn't cooked the potatoes right, and they were hard in the middle. I grabbed my napkin and spit the uncooked potato into it. The onions were no better, so decided to leave the veggies and just eat the beef and broth of the stew. It wasn't the best nikujaga I ever had in my life.

Half way through my meal, I was chewing some beef in my mouth, when I bit down on something hard and slippery, that was not part of the meat. I grabbed my napkin and spit out the slice of meat. Attached to it was a nice, large hunk of cartilage. I shuddered.

"Ugh, gross," I choked.

"Enjoying your meal?" Tenten asked me, looking curiously at my half eaten nikujaga. I shook my head.

"This has to be the worst stew I've ever had," I told her. "I'll just finish off the broth, I guess." I was about to sip some of my broth from my spoon, but I caught Neji glancing over at me and smirking. I gave him a look.

"I saw that, Neji" I growled. I gave me a half amused, half angry look.

"What?"

"I saw you smirk after I said my meal was bad," I told him. Neji gave me a nasty smile.

"Am I not allowed to do something without your consent, Your Higness?" he asked tauntingly, citing me from earlier today. My jaw dropped, and I wanted to tackle him from across the table.

"You arrogant little-" I snarled, but Akio's voice interrupted me.

"Uh... What's going on there, Kayami?" he asked. I turned my head and saw Akio, Katsu, Lee, and Gai look at me quizzically. I felt my cheeks burn, and I laughed nervously.

"Oh, nothing, boys," I told them, waving their words away. "We're fine, just fine-" Unfortunately, while waving my hands, my left one hit my glass of cola I had been drinking, and it toppled over. It spilt all over the table, and onto the front of Neji's jacket, forming a dark, bubbly stain on it.

"Oh, careful!" Tenten cried, as she reached for extra napkins.

"Nice one, Kayami," Akio snickered.

My cheeks burned even more. I glanced at Neji, who glared back at me. He looked like he wanted to kill me.

_Now we're even from the grass stains I got on my kimono, my friend, _I thought.


	6. Arrival

**Thanks for the reviews, everybody! They encourage me :) Here's chapter six:**

--

It wasn't Katsu snoring that woke me up early in the morning, before the sun had barely risen, but a loud crash from my hotel room door banging against the wall as it flew open. I got so scared, I fell off my futon, and got tangled in my sheets. I couldn't see a thing. While wrestling with my blankets, I heard Akio and Katsu start to yell.

"What the-!?" Katsu cried

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Akio exclaimed.

"Rise and shine, kids!" said Gai-sensei's voice from the door frame. I stopped battling my sheets, and lifted up my comforter that covered my eyes to see what was going on.

Gai was standing in the door frame, in his usual green jump suit and flak jacket, and not looking the least bit tired. I groaned and let my head flop onto my blankets.

"Gai-sensei, you scared the living daylights outta me," I mumbled into the comforter. Gai turned his gaze towards me.

"Wow, Kayami-san, you look bone weary," he noted

_No kidding, _I thought.

"Better wake up fast," he told us. "Lee and I have been up since five." With that, Gai left us in an awkward silence. After a little while, Katsu sighed.

"He's right, we better get ready to go," he said, as he pushed his blankets back. Akio let out an exasperated moan and fell back onto his pillow.

"Anyone half decent wouldn't wake someone up like that," he muttered, rubbing his eyes.

--

I met Tenten and her team out in the hallway some time later. She looked nearly as tired as me with dark circles under her eyes. I covered my mouth and yawned.

" 'Morning," I muttered. Tenten yawned as well.

"Hi."

"Where you woken up the same way I was?" I asked. Tenten shrugged.

"If you got woken up by Lee tripping over you at five in the morning, then yes," she said. I shook my head.

"Well, I got woken up by your teacher bursting through the door like Superman or something," I told her, rubbing some sleep out of my eyes. Tenten nodded, sympathetically.

"Yeah, Gai-sensei's got us up like that on previous missions a couple of times," she said. I groaned.

"How do you stand it?" I whispered. Not that I wasn't respectful towards my elders or anything, but you had to admit, Tenten's sensei could be really over the top and irritating.

"You get used him," Tenten said, shrugging. Footsteps approaching us down the corridor made us turn to see who it was. To my utter discontent, it was Neji.

After I spilt my soda on him last night, we hurriedly paid our bill and high tailed it out of the dining room. From what my friend told me, they had to soak Neji's jacket it a sink full of hot water over night for the stain to come out. I would have said it was his fault and that he got in the way of my soda, but I knew very well that it was mine. If I had been paying attention to my hands, then I wouldn't have spilt my drink.

I didn't want to have anything to do with this boy today, so I merely looked away, and beckoned Akio and Katsu, who were standing off to the side, to join us.

"No offense, Kayami," Akio said, sleepily, "but you're a mess this morning!"

I sighed, annoyed. What Akio said was true. Hair kept falling out of my ponytail, my eyes were a dull blue because of my being tired, and the dark circles under my eyes didn't help anything. Still, I didn't need a reminder telling me that I looked like a disaster this morning.

After checking out of the inn, we set off down the road towards Tanzaku City. All the while, Neji and I had not said a word to each other, and this did not go unnoticed by Tenten.

"Wow, this is a first," she whispered to me while Neji walked behind us with Akio and Katsu. "It's six in the morning and you and Neji haven't bitten each other's heads off yet."

"I already spilt soda on him, that should be enough," I said bitterly, my cheeks glowing.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tenten asked, cocking one eyebrow.

"Exactly what I meant it to mean," I answered, wondering if that made any sense whatsoever. "I spilt my drink on him last night, and I didn't even say sorry. I think biting off his head would be carrying it a bit far, even if it is Neji." Tenten sighed and lowered her voice to a whisper again.

"Kayami-chan," she said, gently. "Believe me when I say this. I know Neji can be a real jerk at times, but if you try and ignore his haughtiness and see him for who he is, I think you'd really like him." I scoffed.

"Don't be absurd, Tenten," I told my friend. "He's just a mean, arrogant fatalist with a frostbitten heart, and that's all he'll ever be. I don't like people like that. Never have, never will."

"Kayami, you must understand that it's not-" Tenten began, but Akio screaming cut her off.

"KAYAMI! THERE'S A BUG ON YOUR BACK!" he shrieked, pointing. I turned my head around and saw a large, hundred legged centipede crawling up the back of my kimono.

I screamed as if I had just been been shot, and began to do what i called my 'Centipede Dance'. Here's how you do it.

First, you start off with slapping your back (and the bug for that matter) and nearly taking your shirt off to get the bug off you. Then, you shake your back and hips like Shakira on steroids until the centipede falls off. Then, you finish off by gracefully dropping on to the dirt path and rolling as if you're on fire, while the scared centipede scurries away. And no Centipede Dance would be complete if you didn't scream bloody murder until your voice cracks, like I did.

After my preformance, Gai rushed over to me with a first aid kit in hand.

"Kayami-san, are you hurt?" he asked, his eyes filled with worry.

"No, sensei, she just had a centipede on her back," Tenten said, She turned to the three boys behind us and glared at them. "Why didn't you say anything earlier?" Akio spluttered in disbelief for a moment before he formed a coherent sentence.

"What do you mean 'why didn't you say anything ealier'!?" he yelled. "I'm the one who-"

"I'm not talking to you, Akio," Tenten said. It took me a while before I realized Tenten had mustered up the courage to actually dare and question Neji, and that he was the one she was giving the hairy eyeball to. He returned her icy look with that annoyingly ever-present smirk on his face.

"It wouldn't have hurt her," he said. "I didn't say anything because I didn't want her to scare it." And he called _me_ a liar last night? I wanted to grab the closest, sharpest thing I could find and throw it at his head. Before I could bite back, Gai intervened.

"As long as no one's hurt, let's keep going." He put the first aid kit away, got up, and walked off to rejoin Lee. I got up as well and followed my leader, deciding not to give Neji the pleasure of seeing me angry or embarrassed. I kept a controlled pace as I walked, and Tenten caught up to me.

"He would have been the first to notice the centipede with those eyes of his," she whispered. "That wasn't very nice of him. It was a bit much."

"You think?" I asked, shuddering.

--

Tanzaku City was home to the well known Tanzaku Castle that was the tallest building there. Once, I took a trip to the city and castle when I was seven. I hardly remember it, but I definitely remembered not being as tired as I was now at thirteen years old.

Like usual, Gai and Lee kept up a pretty fast pace that got us through the forest and Crater City pretty fast, but it really tired us out. Despite it being own by a theif, I couldn't have been happier when I saw Nagaharu Takeda's big, fancy hotel situated near Tanzaku Castle.

While checking into the hotel, I let my eyes feast on the spectacle of the lobby around me. The floor was polished marble, I could see my reflection clearly in it. The walls were decorated with lavish wall tapestries and scrolls, depicting Tanzaku City's and the Fire Country's history. The domed ceiling was the haven of a marvelous crystalline chandelier. Posh visitors in furs and expensive textiles followed by bell boys carrying their luggage walked left and right. I felt very plain and middle classed standing in the lobby in my simple kimono and drab capris.

All seven of us had taken off our ninja headbands, and Gai had removed his flak jacket and hidden it in his backpack. We had to look like normal civilians so that we didn't attract attention to ourselves (in my opinion, this was going to be very hard for Lee and Gai, even if their ninja accessories were removed).

On our way here, we came up with a story to tell in case anybody asked: Gai was a single parent to his children, Lee and Tenten, and he agreed to let them bring 'a few' friends on their little vacation. Katsu and I were Tenten's friends, and Neji and Akio were Lee's. I liked the story, save from the fact that I found Lee and Tenten looked nothing alike.

"It's a good thing I'm the superb ninja I am," Gai said, as he approached us after checking in, "or else I wouldn't have been able to pay for these two nights: six hundred and fifty ryou!" I winced, hoping no one heard the "I'm a ninja" part of Gai's grievance.

We made our way upstairs to the fifth floor where our rooms were. I would be sharing a room with Tenten, Akio and Lee stayed in the room next to us (much to Akio's discontent), poor Katsu shared a room with the Hyuuga Brat, and Gai had a room to himself, which I don't think any of us minded. No one (except for maybe Lee) would voluntarily stay in a room with Gai over night.

Mine and Tenten's room was very fancy. We each had a large, soft, queen size bed with a myriad of pillows piled onto it. The carpet in our room was so thick that my feet sunk into it. The walls were painted a classy, relaxing peachy colour, and the large window showed us how startlingly close we were to Tanzaku Castle.

While I jumped onto my bed, happy to get off my feet, Tenten was looking at the hotel pamphlet she took from the stand near the entrace doors when we first arrived. She gasped when she turned the page.

"Kayami, look!" she said, showing me the page. "It says here every Friday night at eight o' clock, the hotel owner himself, Nagaharu Takeda joins the hotel's resteraunt and bar for two hours. If we meet him there, we could secretly get information out of him, and he'd be away from the doll we're trying to get back!" I gasped.

"Tenten! You're a genius!" I exclaimed, happily. I nearly gasped again when I came to another realization. "Tomorrow's Friday night!" I said. A smile spilt across Tenten's face. She got up and ran out of the room.

"I'm going to go show this to the boys and Gai-sensei!" she called over her shoulder.

--

**And there's Chapter five. I had a bit of writer's block, which is why this update took a while, but I got over it! Yay! **


	7. The Glitch

The next morning, I wasn't woken up by Gai-sensei crashing through the door. I woke up on my own, with the sunlight shining through my curtains and listening to Tenten's heavy breathing in the other bed. It was very relaxing.

Once we both decided to get up, we noticed the other's dark circles under our eyes were gone, and we looked much more awake. We each had a shower, got dressed, and left our room to go see Akio and Lee.

When Akio answered the door, his hair was touselled and he was still in his footie pajamas. He looked as tired as he had been yesterday.

"What's this?" Tenten asked, surpassing a giggle directed towards his choice of pj's. "Did you not have a good sleep?" Akio groaned.

"You're team mate woke me up all too early in the morning," he muttered, annoyed. "Honestly, who does push ups at seven in the morning?" Tenten and I laughed.

"That's Lee for you," said my friend. We entered the room that was similar to our's and sat on the unmade beds, watching Lee do his sit ups on the floor (he was at sit up four hundred and forty two). Akio joined us, and gave Lee a quizzically look.

"Don't you think three hundred push ups and five hundred sit ups are enough, Lee?" he asked. Lee shook his head, not stopping his exercise.

"No, Akio-kun, it is barely enough. I am just warming up," he said. Akio winced.

"Um... Please, just call me Akio," he pleaded the boy. I had a feeling Akio didn't like being given pet names by someone as strange as Rock Lee.

"So, what are we gonna do about today?" I asked, swinging my feet, letting them bump on the side of the mattress. "We've got until this evening to carry out our mission, what are we gonna do in the mean time?"

"That is easy, Kayami-chan," Lee panted, still not pausing to speak as he did his sit ups. "We will plan what we are going to do when evening comes."

"Well, we need the others if we wanna plan now," I said.

"Gai-sensei is already up," Lee told me. "You can go get him, and I am not sure whether Katsu-kun or Neji are up yet, but you can knock on their door and see if you wish." I nodded.

"Okay, Tenten and I will go get them," I said. We got up off the bed and made our way out of the room, leaving Akio with the strange boy on the floor.

"You go see if Katsu and Neji are up," Tenten said, as we walked towards their rooms. "I'm going to go get Gai-sensei." I frowned, wondering why in her right mind Tenten would tell me to go get Neji, but I shrugged, walked up to their door, and pounded three times on it. The Evil Kayami deep down inside of my mind was hoping that I woke Neji up by knocking loudly on the door. Still, the Good Kayami in my head was hoping Katsu would answer the door, and not get the usual glare from my enemy

Good Kayami got upset when Neji opened the door. He seemed just as upset to see me. He wouldn't open the door all the way, and was peeking out from behind it, so that I could not see his lower half. Something told me I didn't want to, seeing as though he was still in his sleeping top (a plain, loose, dull grey t-shirt), his bandages were taken off his arm, and his head band was not on his forehead. He narrowed his eyes at me.

"What do you want?" he snapped. I returned his glare, like I usually do.

"Good morning to you, too, Starshine," I said, sarcastically. "Listen up, you and Katsu have to meet us in Lee and Akio's room once your... presentable..." I said this uneasily, observing my enemy's plain sleeping shirt, and untied, slightly tousled long hair. "And hurry up, we don't wanna be waiting all day." With that, I turned on my heel and marched off back to Akio and Lee's room.

_Ha! You so gave it to him! Good job, girly! _Evil Kayami told me, cackling. I smiled inwardly. I hadn't done much, only told Neji to hurry up, but I still felt somewhat accomplished.

_Too bad you got him at a bad time, _Evil Kayami added. _He was still in his pj's! _I grimaced, the unwanted image of Neji in nothing but his grey sleeping shirt and boxers entering my mind.

"Yuck!" I said, aloud. I would rather take Akio in his footie pajamas than seeing Neji in such a state, which I kind of already did.

_Oh, like you haven't seen Tabito and Kouta in their boxers and sleeping shirts before, _Good Kayami scolded me. _Don't be such a little girl._

_Tabito and Kouta are my brothers, _I pointed out as I entered mine and Tenten's team mates' room. Gai was there, leaning against the wall talking to his two students (Lee had ceased his exercises), and Akio was still in his pajamas.

"Katsu and Neji are coming," I grumbled, plunking myself down next to Akio on his bed. "They've gotta get dressed." Tenten looked at me and raised her eyebrows.

"You okay, Kayami?" she asked. I furrowed my brow.

"Yeah, why?" I asked.

"Your cheeks are red," she said. Surprised, I jumped off the bed, ran into the bathroom, and looked at my reflection in the mirror.

Sure enough, the girl staring back at me was blushing, looking like she had just been sun burned. I squinted my eyes at my reflection. Why was I blushing? Shaking my head, I left the bathroom and sat down to the bed.

"So, what's up?" Tenten asked, nodding towards my red cheeks.

"Nothing," I said. "I just ran all the way here, now I'm a little flushed." I wasn't sure if she bought it or not, but Tenten shrugged anyway, and turned back to her sensei to listen to him talking, leaving me to wonder what the real cause for my blushing was, although I had a pretty good idea.

--

It was later in the evening. My eyes scanned the restaurant and bar as I walked. Katsu and I weaved in and out through tables, customers, and waiters, searching. Before long I spotted our target, and elbowed Katsu in the ribs to get his attention.

"Katsu, I see him!" I whispered. Katsu remained calm.

"Tell me where, Kayami," he said. I glanced back at our target through the lenses of my sun glasses.

"He's sitting at the bar next to the woman in the frilly blue dress," I answered. Katsu saw Nagaharu Takeda sitting at the bar and nodded.

"I'm going to go get Lee and Akio so we can move in," he said. "You, Tenten, Neji, and Gai-sensei scout around and take out as many rogues that are under Takeda's command as you can, and wait for our signal." I nodded, even though we had gone through this plan the whole day. With that, Katsu and I separated.

--

Nagaharu Takeda was sitting at the bar, drinking sake, and talking to a very alluring woman, when three brats suddenly surrounded him. They only looked about thirteen or fourteen.

"Oh, wow, look, Souta! It's the hotel owner himself!" said a green eyed, blonde kid.

"Wow, Nagaharu Takeda, it is an honour to meet you, sir," said a weird looking boy in a green jumpsuit with huge eyebrows.

"Uh... Hi, kids," Takeda said, uneasily. He looked around the fancy bar and restaurant and turned back to the three boys. "Where are your parents?"

"Oh, Dad's gone up to the hotel room; He forgot his key," the dark haired boy said, smiling gleefully. "Nagaharu-sama, we have heard so much about you!"

"Um, yeah, that-that's cool," Takeda said, looking around the bar again. Minors weren't allowed in the bar, and he didn't like kids in general. Besides, he was right in the middle of a conversation with that beautiful woman. Nagaharu got off his bar stool, and looked down at the boys, who looked back up at him with admiration shining in their eyes.

"Look, kids," he said, urgently. "Children aren't allowed in the bar, so why don't you run along and wait for your dad in the resteraunt?"

"But, wait a sec!" the green eyed kid cried. "We heard you're an antique collector! We wanted to ask you about your collection!"

Takeda's ears twitched when the boy said that. If there was anything that he liked to do, be it a child or an adult he was talking to, Nagaharu Takeda loved to brag about his superb antique collection. He smiled widely.

"Well, why didn't you say so?" he asked, giving the boy a five star on his back. "Come sit at the bar with me, I'll buy you a soda."

--

I ran down the deserted hallway, kunai in hand, following Tenten, Neji, and Gai in front of me. So far, we had taken out five rogues that had recognized us as ninja.

Our plan was simple: Akio, Lee, and Katsu talked to Takeda to get information out of him while Tenten, Neji, Gai, and I took out the hotel owner's rogue ninja (whom we could tell apart from civilians by sensing a higher level of chakra in them) while we waited for the three boys to tell us where the missing doll was. We'd retrieve the doll, and leave as fast as we could before we were found out.

As I ran down the hallway the ear piece I was wearing beeped, and I heard Akio's voice.

"Guys, we know the location of the doll: It's up at the main house, in Takeda's study!"

"He mentioned it was on his desk," Lee's voice added. "We will meet you there."

"Good job, boys," Gai said into the microphone. With that, the connection went dead, and we turned on our heel and ran down the other way.

To reach the main house where Takeda lived, we had to go outside. The moon served as our light, illuminating the path on which we ran as silent shadows, not exchanging a word.

The main house was a huge, mansion-like house that was built by top architects, and I doubted very much that the enormous, double doors were unlocked. But once we ran up the stairs and to them, we discovered that they were. Wasting no time, we opened them and ran into the enormous house.

We dashed down the wide corridors that were decorated with old paintings from centuries back and wall tapestries until were came to a wooden door that read _Private Study. _Without a moment's hesitation, we opened the door, and entered the study. The sight waiting for us was not what we expected.

On the floor, gagged and bound, lay Akio and Katsu struggling against their bonds, while Lee lay slumped against the wall, unconcious. Sitting at the desk was Nagaharu Takeda surrounded by a myriad of rogue ninja, smiling evilly at me, Tenten, Neji, and Gai.

"You got here faster than anticipated," he said, chuckling. "We didn't have time to even kill one of these boys yet."

--

**Dun, dun, DUUUNNN!! Cliffhanger! What will happen!? Lol, thanks for reading! **


	8. Success

**Hey everyone! Here's the next chapter, but first, some shout outs:**

**roseandthorns: Yay! Virtual cookie _and_ Pony! I'm gonna call him Sparkles! :P**

**KittyLo-chan: I used to watch Pokemon religiously when I was younger, but I haven't watched it for a really long time**

**Siean Horoc: Lol, here's the rest of the action ;)**

**--**

"Let them go!" Tenten demanded through gritted teeth. I was too scared to say anything. I looked at Akio and Katsu, who had tape over their mouths, and tape wound around their wrists. I looked closer and noticed their fingers had been bound as well so that they couldn't preform any jutsu to escape. I heard Gai gasp when his eyes fell on his student.

"What did you do to Lee!?" he cried. Takeda laughed.

"That boy of your's is quite the fighter," he said. "It took three of my guards to hold him moderately steady before they could could give him a little tap on the back of his head."

"Let them go, now!" I shouted, getting brave for two seconds as Takeda's arrogance enraged me. Takeda eyed me closely and scoffed.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, kunoichi," he said, "because if I let your little friends go, you'll take what is rightfully mine." The hotel manager gestured to the front of his desk, where an eleven centimetre doll dressed in a fancy kimono stood, hiding her face with her fan. The figurine looked very old and very pretty. I couldn't see what 'seceret' was on it, but I knew we had to get it back.

"I knew exactly what was up when one of my guards alerted me of your status," Takeda said, nodding towards one huge brute standing near his desk, his face covered. "You thieves think you can steal my precious geisha doll from me? You make me sick." Tension filled the room before Neji decided to act without our consent. He lunged for the doll on Takeda's desk, and snatched it. Takeda and his rogues made a half hearted effort to stop him. Neji inspected the doll and glared at them with his Byakugan eyes.

"You think my eyes can be deceived this easily?" he asked, as he dropped the doll. It fell on the floor, and disappeared in a puff of smoke and was replaced by a ballpoint pen. I gasped, releived that Neji was able to see through the illusion. Takeda glared at him.

"You're smarter than you look, kid," he said. "Too bad you're not a rogue- I could've recruited you."

"Give us the doll and our comrades," Tenten snarled, drawing my kamas from her waist pouch (being herself, she had forgotten her own at home, so I lent her mine). "Or else." Takeda took one look at Tenten's serious face and chuckled.

"You know, I never liked kids," he said, "and this is half the reason why." He got up from his desk and walked to the door to leave. Before he did, he looked back at the rogue ninja who had his face covered. "Toshiro, please do away with these fiends so that I may get back to enjoying my evening."

"Hai, Nagaharu-sama," the rogue said, nodding. With that, Nagaharu Takeda left the room. We didn't chase after him. Our goal was to retrieve the doll, not to hurt Takeda.

There wasn't enough time for an awkward silence, for the rogues (lead by Toshiro) attacked us all at once. There were nine enemies in the whole room. Two attacked me, two leaped for Tenten, two lunged for Neji, and three came at Gai. All hell broke loose.

The rogues were at least jounin level, for it took all of my speed, agility, and awareness to simply avoid their attacks. The two enemies that fought me attacked me with kunai and shuriken. Before the weapons hit me, I did a replacement jutsu and ended up behind one of my opponents. I punched him in the middle of his back as hard as I could, but it had no effect on him. Before I could launch my next attack, the other man who I was fighting grabbed me from behind and held me in a head lock.

Fighting with all my strength, I finally managed to get him to let go of me by biting down hard on his arm. After he released me, I made a few quick hand signs and created a clone to take on the guy who head locked me while I dealt with the other one. However, my clone only fought for so long before my second opponent cut it down. I should have known a simple clone jutsu wouldn't have fooled dangerous rogues like these guys. I needed something more solid, like a shadow clone jutsu.

Around me, my comrades weren't having the easiest time ever. Tenten had already used half the weaponry she had on her, and was now trying to deal with two guys at the same time with two pairs of nunchaku in her hand. My jounin leader had his hands full with three opponents, which he hit, kicked, punched, blocked, and all the other martial arts moves I can think of. Neji looked like he was having an okay time, repelling those rogues with his Gentle Fists and making them cough up blood, but like I cared about what he was doing.

I was losing the battle fast with my two adversaries. They had gotten more than a few good hits on me, while I hadn't made a scratch on them. I was losing energy and chakra, and I was in big trouble as they began to advance on me. I backed up into a book case, and stared the rogues in the eye, trying to hide my fear.

"It's over, kunoichi," they said to me, raising their fists and leaning over me. "Any last requests?"

I didn't know what to do. I was about to do what I usually did for my last resort: Call for help. But, a certain training day at the Academy entered my mind before I could open my mouth.

Once upon a time, when I was eleven, my sensei taught our class a special type of tai-jutsu called ju-jutsu. In ju-jutsu you used for opponents height and weight to his disadvantaged. My current situation definitely called for a little ju-jutsu at that moment.

Without hesitation, I leaped in between one of the brutes legs, somersaulted and landed on my butt behind them. As fast as I could, I raised my two feet and kicked them in their rear ends, hoping to send them head first into the book case.

Maybe it was my technique or sheer luck, but whatever it was, the rogue ninja fell forward and into the book case. To my surprise, as they fell, the weight of their bodies pushed the book case aside, and it spun a little, allowing my enemies to fall freely into the secret room that was behind the book case. With that, it rotated again until the passage way closed up, and all that I could see was a normal book case with scattered books on its shelves.

Unsure of what just happened, but happy I had finally managed to do away with my opponents, I rushed over to my bound team mates and tore the tape off their mouths.

"Thank God you guys came in time, Kayami!" Akio said. "Those guys were gonna kill us!"

"I know," I said. I drew a kunai from my weapon holster and severed the tape binding my team mates' wrists. "What happened?"

"Takeda led us into his office where a bunch of rogues were waiting and they bound us. They were all too skilled," Katsu said as I worked. "We tried everything we could, and they still tied us up."

"Well, ju-jutsu is their weakness!" I said, triumphantly, nodding towards the magic book case that saved my hide. Near the shelves, I saw Lee slumped against the wall, still unconscious.

"What happened to him?" I asked, pointing to Lee as I started on unwinding the tape from the boys' fingers.

"They knocked him out," said Akio. "One of the rogues clubbed him at the back of his head with the hilt of his kunai before he could react." I winced, feeling sorry for Lee to have to deal with a horrid head ache once he woke up. Once I finished unwinding the tape from Katsu and Akio's finger, we helped our comrades with their battles, doing everything we could to defeat the rogues.

I helped Tenten, who had a cut and bleeding lower lip, and a number of bruises and scratches on her face and arms. She was now using senbon needles against her opponents. Though tired, I forced myself to fight the other guy attacking Tenten using ju-jutsu like I did on my opponents. I got hurt a couple of times, but I pushed on, and eventually, I managed to knock the rogue into the wall hard enough, and the clock fell on his head, knocking him out.

Satisfied, I turned around and saw that Tenten had turned her back to her enemies for a spilt second, trying to retrieve more weapons from her waist pouch, and her enemy was raising a deadly kunai over her head.

"TENTEN!" I screamed. Just as the brute was about to bring his weapon down on my friend, he stopped, choked up a bit of blood, and fell flat on his face, on the floor, narrowly missing Tenten. I turned my head and saw Neji holding his palm up, glaring at the rogue on the floor. He looked up at Tenten.

"Try to be more careful," he said. Tenten sighed a sigh a relief and nodded.

"Okay. Sorry," she apologized. I frowned, wondering my she would apologize to _him_. I shrugged off the thought and turned my head to see Gai-sensei helping Akio and Katsu finish off their last opponent. Once the guy was K.O.'ed, Gai rushed over to Lee, who was still slumped against the wall, and held him up.

"Lee? Lee! Are you alright!? Answer me!" he cried, sounding close to tears.

"...Sensei...?" Lee muttered, barely coming to. Gai sighed, and I could have sworn I saw a single tear roll down from his eyes.

"Oh, Lee, I thought I had lost you for good!" he sobbed, hugging the boy. I rolled my eyes and turned to Akio and Katsu.

"Now that we're finished with our enemies, what are we gonna do about the doll?" I asked over the screaming voices of my former adversaries from behind the magic book case. Akio shrugged.

"I have no idea," he said. "I didn't see a doll this entire time around the room."

"Well, it has to be somewhere," Tenten stepped in. "Maybe it's hidden?"

"We should sweep the room," Neji said, joining us. He opened his mouth to continue speaking, but Katsu interrupted him.

"Guys, look!" he said, quietly, but excitedly. He climbed up a few shelves on the magic book case, pulled aside a heavy, leather bound hard cover, and removed an object from behind it. That object was an eleven inch doll dressed as a geisha in a pretty orange kimono, hiding her face behind a fan. My jaw dropped.

"Oh my God, Katsu..." I breathed.

"It's..." Tenten began.

"IT'S THE DOLL! WAHOO!" cheered Akio. Katsu smiled and gingerly handed it to Neji.

"I thought I saw something behind the book, and-" he began, but being clumsy Katsu, the boy stumbled off the shelves, fell onto the floor, and his foot hit the side of the magic book case, making it turn. Without a moment's hesitation, my two former opponents got out, and lunged for us. Exhausted, I was about ready to fight, but Gai jumped in front of me, and clubbed the two mens' heads together. They fell onto the floor and didn't get back up. Gai looked at the doll in Neji's hands, and smiled.

"Good job, team!" he said, giving us the thumbs up. "You found it!"

"Really, it was Katsu," I was, nodding to my team mate.

"There's a passage out of this study behind this book case," said Neji, looking into the chamber behind the book case and at a dark tunnel at the back of it. "I feel a draft coming from it," he continued. "It must lead outside."

"Let's leave before Takeda sends anymore rogues after us," I said. After securing the doll safely in Neji's waist pouch, my team and Tenten's team bounded through the passage way, and out doors, running away from the hotel at the speed of light before we could be seen.


	9. Over the Edge

**Well, I messed up with uploading the tenth chapter, and I accidently replaced chapter nine with it, so I had to rewrite it all over again Sorry, if anyone's reading it back, if the words and stuff are different, but now I know to save stuff properly **

--

I dragged myself up to my front door, exhausted. I knocked on the door, aware that I was waking up Riko, and possibly the boys.

After stealing the doll, my team and Tenten's team ran out of Tanzaku City as fast as we could, and didn't slow down until we reached Crater City. Once reaching the town, we didn't even stop to rest, we just continued on through the forest, and back to Konoha. To my surprise, the Hokage was still awake at two in the morning, and we gave him back the doll, he gave us our pay (one thousand ryou each!), and promised to return the doll to its owner in the morning.

Riko answered the door in her bathrode and fluffy bunny slippers, her hair a mess, and her eyes squinted. None the less, she was surprised to see me.

"You're back from your mission, Kayami?" she said, making way for me to pass.

"Seems that way, don't it?" I asked, too tired to use proper grammar. I stepped over the threshold and Riko shut the door.

"How did it go?" she asked me.

"I'll tell you tomorrow, Riko, I'm really tired right now," I said, kicking off my shoes.

"I understand," Riko said, nodding. "Good night."

I trudged up the stairs, down the hallway, and into my bedroom. I didn't even bother to change into my pajamas, I just flopped onto my bed, and fell asleep nearly instantly.

--

When I woke up the next morning, it was nearly noon. The sunlight shone through my window in yellow bars, telling me it was time to get up. I rolled over in my bed, and saw a note waiting for me on my bedside table next to my alarm clock. I picked it up and read it.

_Kayami,_

_Things are going to be buy at the office today, and I'm going to be a little late. Can you watch the boys when they get home from the Academy please? Thanks._

_Love, Riko_

I sighed. Riko worked as a secratary for this fancy psychologist named Gaku Hideaki, and had to work late at times. Sometimes I wondered if Riko really had to work late, or if she and Gaku were just taking the time to flirt with each other. I wouldn't be surprised if they were. They had been together for quite a few months now.

Shrugging, I got out of bed, and went downstairs for breakfast.

--

My day was very uneventful. I had watched TV, read a book, drew some pictures, and taken a walk, waiting until Tabito and Kouta got home. While on my walk, I decided it was a good idea to practise some nin-jutsu and train on my day off missions. While walking, I passed by Tenten's house, and wanted to ask her to come tain with me. When I knocked at the door, her mother answered it.

"Is Tenten there?" I asked. She nodded and went to go get her daughter. Tenten met me in the doorway.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," I said. "You want to come train with me?"

"Sure, I was just on my way out," Tenten smiled. She ran back inside to get the remainder of her weapons, and started off towards the training field with me.

--

"You _forgot?_" I asked my friend, angrily, as we stood off to the side of the training field. Tenten looked at her shoes.

"I'm sorry, Kayami," she said. "I was just so concentrated on bringing all my weapons, and then you showed up, and it completely slipped my mind that I was meeting Neji here too!" I growled, and glared at Neji, who was waiting for us in the middle of the field with a scowl on his face.

"How could you have forgotten!?" I asked, crossly.

"I said I was sorry," Tenten told the floor. I sighed.

"Okay, whatever, let's just get this over with," I said, walking back out into the middle of the training field.

The first part of our practise was fine. We practised our own ninja art seperately, then Neji and I sparred with Tenten individually. Then, about halfway through the practise, Tenten had the brilliant idea of trying to get me and Neji to spar. I wasn't sure if she was or wasn't aware that she was, as I would say, 'poking the bear'.

"No way, girly," I said, shaking my head.

"Come on, you two," she told us. "If you put your differences aside, and fought like equals, it'd be really good for your training."

"Tenten, you are wrong about many things," Neji said to her. "But you are the most wrong about her being my equal." I shot him a glare.

"Here we go with the 'mediocre' ninja thing again, eh, Neji?" I said. "If you were a jonin, and I were a genin, then we wouldn't be equal, but you're not a jonin, so-"

"No, I'm not, but you are no match against the Hyuuga clan's skills," Neji said.

"So what?" I asked. "I'm not your equal because I don't have messed up eyes like you?"

"Kayami!" Tenten yelled, angrily.

"These 'messed up' eyes are better than your two put together," Neji growled. "And what elite kekkei genkai do you have, Kayami Tsuji? Or do you not have one because you're from a low, inbred family liekt he rest of the losers in this village?"

"Neji!" Tenten yelled, even angrier.

"You're very arrogant," I said to Neji. How dare he attack my family? I pointed my index finger at him and said, dangerously, "Don't you ever insult my family again, or I'll-"

"What are you going to do?" the boy challenged. "Go home crying to your mother about how I hurt you so?" Tenten and I gasped.

That was it. That was the last straw. I had had enough of this kid. I glowered at my enemy with Hellfire burning in my eyes.

"I would," I said, "if only I had a mother to run and complain to!" I looked Neji in the eyes, and said as ominously as I could, "Listen to me, you arrogant little brat, you are very, very, _very_ lucky; You are part of one of the most powerful clans in the Leaf village, and you are surrounded by cousins, aunts, uncles, and best of all, your mother and your father- Tenten, stop it!" I yelled at my friend, who had began to wave her hands and shake her head when I mentioned Neji's parents. I turned back to Neji, who looked like he wanted to draw and quarter me, and feed me to the dogs.

"You have a clan who loves you, and who are at your feet because you're a mother flippin' genius," I snapped. "And you know what, Neji-kun? I. Have. No. Parents. I watched them die, and I was only nine! I have my twenty-five year old sister looking after me and my two brothers, and I love them very much, but I still HAVE NO PARENTS!" Tears welled up in my eyes. "So, the next time you want to complain about this and that, or belittle someone, try remembering that others have it worse than you!" With that, I turned on my heel, and left the training grounds, my tears spilling from my eyes.

I couldn't take Neji Hyuuga anymore. He pushed me over the edge, I vowed to never ever talk to him again.


	10. Kayami's Desicions

**KittyLo-chan: I think you'd make a great one shot. I'm sorry I didn't go into depth in the romance between them in the last story, I just wanted the story to focus more on how Shizuka managed to fall for Shika-kun and stuff, but whatever, I'd love to see that one shot idea of your's on here :)**

**Kibafangirl11: Thanks for pointing that error out, and thanks for all the reviews**

**roseandthorns-chan: Yes, I agree, Kayami was being very idiotic in that chapter, and I was getting mad at her while writing it XD**

**--**

I looked at the paper in my hands, reading it over and over again.

_Chuunin Exam Admission Slip_

_I, Shinto Ishikiwa, give my permission to my student, Kayami Tsuji, along with her team mates, Katsu Togashi, and Akio Mizuto, to participate in the Chuunin Exams starting on June 28 at 2:00 p.m. at the Ninja Academy._

Below the small paragraph was Shinto-sensei's signature, and a single, empty line that was awaiting my signature, showing that I agreed to participate in the Chuunin Exams. I was sitting on my bed, so I fell back onto my pillow and tried to sort through my swimming thoughts.

I had heard whispers about the Chuunin exams among the Hidden Leaf genin, but I thought it was just all talk. Shinto-sensei really surprised us when he gave us our admission slips one day after the missions. He told us he had waited a while to let us gain experience before we participated in the exams, but he thought we were ready now.

Akio signed the slip without a second thought, eager to prove himself and become a Chuunin. Katsu thought it over for a day or two, then signed it and handed it in. I was the only one out of our team who hadn't made a decision yet.

I was torn two ways because we didn't have to take the Chuunin exams if we didn't want to, but if one of the three didn't take them, the whole team wasn't able to. I didn't want to hold back Katsu and Akio, but I wasn't sure if I was ready to go up against foreign genin in frighteningly difficult tests. I had heard stuff about those exams, and now that I knew the rumours were true, I wasn't sure if I wanted to take them just yet.

But another part of me was telling me to sign the paper and try my best, and if anyone didn't like it, then they could kiss my rear end. That part of me liked the idea of adventure, and something new. I imagined myself, for a moment, with a green flak jacket on, and Riko, Tabito, and Kouta cheering for me, a proud chuunin.

_Besides, _Adventure-loving Kayami told me. _You'd show that Hyuuga brat that you're so not a mediocre ninja! _

It had been about two weeks since my horrendous fight with Neji, and I had not seen him or Tenten since. Not that I really wanted to see Neji at all. I hadn't noticed how frosty his heart really was before, and vowed not to talk to him ever again.

_That mouthy son of a gun has done nothing but bother me, and a fortnight ago he touched on a sensitive subject, _I reflected. I got angry. _No. He didn't just touch that subject, he attacked it like some deranged wild cat!_

I thought of the look on Neji's face when I, the 'mediocre kunoichi', became a chuunin. I thought of Riko being proud of me. I thought of being of more importance to Konoha. I thought of my team mates, Akio and Katsu, and my best friend, Tenten, taking the exams alongside me. And I thought of us all being victorious.

Adventure-loving Kayami won. I grabbed a pen, and I signed my name at the bottom of the admission slip.

--

Days later, Katsu, Akio, and I stood nearly pressed up against the wall in a crowded class room, waiting for the Chuunin Exams to begin. I was so nervous my knees were shaking, and I felt like I was going to be sick.

"Man, couldn't they have gotten a bigger room?" Akio muttered, squeezing past a scary looking Mist ninja. "It's so crowded in here!"

"Hey, I heard nine rookies are entering the exams," Katsu said, leaning against a desk. "All fresh out of the Academy."

"A bunch of twelve year olds entering the Chuunin Exams? That'd make them some of the youngest participants, how'll they survive all these guys?" I whispered, a little scared of all the foreign ninja around me.

About five minutes later, after the loud rookies made their entrance (Naruto being the loudest of them all), I heard a strong, rough voice address all the exam participants at the front of the room.

"Alright, you baby faced degenerates," it yelled, "pipe down, and listen up!" I stood on my tippy-toes to see who was speaking. It was a guy in a long black trench coat, a ninja bandana wrapped around his head, and his face had two fierce looking scars across it.

"I'm Ibiki Morino, your proctor," the man said, maliciously, "and from this moment: Your worst enemy."

I gulped.

--

I had done written tests before, and I was good at them, but now, I felt so nervous. I sat in my assigned seat in a large classroom, and looked at the test paper in front of me. I put my shaking hands in my lap, and tried to calm down.

"Don't worry, Kayami," Katsu, who was sitting beside me, said. "You'll be fine." I took a deep breathe, and nodded.

"Thanks, Katsu-kun," I said, forcing a smile. I looked at the person sitting in front of me. To my surprise, it was Tenten.

I leaned over my desk and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around and smiled at me.

"Hi," she said. "I didn't see you come in."

"Didn't see you either," I said. "Are you nervous?" Tenten gave me a worried look and nodded.

"A little," she said, her voice a little squeaky. She tried to redeme herself, cleared her throat, looked me seriously in the eye, and said, "Kayami, about that fight you had with Neji-"

"I don't want to talk about it," I growled, annoyed that she had brought it up.

"Hey, no talking," scolded a Chuunin. I mouthed a "good luck" to my friend, and sat back down in my seat and scanned the room.

The nine rookies were scattered about the place, and they were all kind of fidgety. While looking around the room I spotted the very person I didn't want anything to do with, Neji. I shot him a glare at the back of his head, and turned to look at Ibiki, who was speaking to us, up at the front of the room.

"Alright, you've got an hour to answer all nine questions on your paper," he said, gruffly. "Anyone caught cheating gets two points deducted from their total score. Get caught five times, and you automatically fail. Be warned, these chuunin have eyes like hawks." He gestured to the chuunin sitting around the room. I swallowed hard, feeling their judgemental eyes on us.

"Your time begins now," Ibiki told us. With that, everyone picked up their pencils and began the test.

The first few questions were easy, and I answered them with ease, but they got harder, and I found I had no idea what the answer was. I was dumbfounded. I sat there, trying to figure out the questions, until only ten minutes of the test were left.

Desperately, I scribbled down some answers that probably made no sense at all, and hoped for the best. Eventually, time was up, and the tenth question was to be given out.

"I should warn you though," Ibiki said to the test takers. "If you get this tenth question wrong, you will stay a genin for the rest of your life." A worried murmur swept through the crowd of students. I thought I was going to have a cardiac arrest. Stay a genin for the rest of my life!? Forget it!

"However, if you choose to quit now, and try again next year, you're free to do so," Ibiki offered. I wanted to bang my head on the desk. The proctor put me between a rock and a hard place. I didn't know which to choose. If I quit, I took my team mates down with me, but if I stay and get the question wrong, I'll remain a junior ninja forever. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Katsu.

"You can do it, Kayami," he whispered, encouragingly. "Stay."

"But-" I began, but Katsu silence me.

"Stay here, you'll be fine," he said. I had gained some courage from Katsu's words, so I took a deep breathe and said, "Okay. I'll take on the tenth question." Katsu smiled.

"Good for you," he said. Katsu and I caught Akio's eye, a couple of rows from us. We nodded to each other, agreeing to stay for the tenth question. Tenten turned around and looked at me, worriedly. Trying to be as brave as I could, I nodded to her too, and she returned my gesture.

Suddenly, as all the newly failed genin left the room, I saw one hand raise itself slowly in the air. To my surprise, it was Naruto Uzumaki, the fox kid. I looked at him shocked,

_No way, _I thought. _He claimed to beat everyone before, is he real going to quit now? _I watched as Naruto's hand remained in the air. Suddenly, he slammed it down on his desk.

"There's no way I'm quiting now, you don't scare me!" he yelled at Ibiki, who smirked in response.

"Are you sure?" he asked the thirteen year old. "If you fail this question, you remain a genin for the rest of your life."

"I don't care! I'll still find a way to be Hokage some day!" Naruto shouted. "I don't run, and I don't go back on my word; That's my ninja way!" I smiled. Sure, maybe the kid did have some deranged fox demon inside him, but his pep talk gave me strength, and most of my worry disappeared. A little more confident now, I remained in my seat, and waited as Ibiki revealed the tenth question.

"You all pass!" the proctor announced.

I nearly fell off my chair.

--

**And there's the next chapter. Sorry there wasn't much of Kayami and Neji interaction, but there will be soon. Until next time, sayanora :)**


	11. Team Shinto Meets Stupidity

I lay in my bed, smiling up at my ceiling in the dark, thinking the day over.

After Ibiki had explained to us how the tenth question mirrored the duties and things expected from a chuunin, some nut job crashed through the window, and made a whole big spectacle of herself, introducing herself as the second test proctor. Her name was Anko Mitarashi, and I wouldn't be surprised if she had A.D.D. She started yelling about the second test, where it would take place, and how we were maggots and stuff.

Seven o' clock tomorrow morning, at Practise Area 44. After Anko had roughly explained the details to us, we left the classroom, and Akio joined me and Katsu.

"Wow, that was intense!" he said. "Well, I had a tough time answering the questions, but I was able to get the answers off that disguised chuunin because I was sitting right next to him. All I had to do was take a quick glance at his paper without him noticing, and my photographic memory did the rest! How about you guys?"

"I was looking in the mirrors Kayami's friend in front was using to cheat," Katsu said. He turned to me. "How about you, Kayami?"

I didn't answer right away. I felt stupid because I was the only one out of our team who had not discovered the trick to answering the questions was to cheat. How could I have missed it? In a ninja's eyes, it was obvious, and I couldn't believe I didn't get that. I shook my head.

"Ah, I relied on my brains, and nothing else," I said, shrugging it off. Suddenly I felt a hand come down on my back, giving me a five star. I turned around to see Tenten smilng widely at me.

"Kayami, we made it through the first round of the Exams!" she cried joyfully. She raised her hand, and I slapped it, giving her a high five.

"Can you believe it!? We're one step closer to being chuunin!" I said, joyfully.

"I know, I know, I'm so psyched for tomorrow!" my friend chripped, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "Do you think we'll pass the next stage tomorrow?"

"Without a doubt," I said, sounding more confident than I really was.

Still staring up at the dark ceiling in my bedroom, I felt my happy, accomplished feeling get turned into a nervous, flighty one that shifted uneasily in my stomach and lower abdomen. The first stage of the Chuunin Exams were pretty hard, and I could only imagine the second stage would be even harder. I rolled over in my bed, and glanced at my alarm clock. It was ten at night.

_I've got to get some sleep, _I decided. I snuggled under my covers, and closed my eyes, trying to fall asleep.

--

The next morning, I was waiting outside Practise Area 44 (also known as The Forest of Death) with Katsu and Akio, shivering in my sandals. As Anko explained what we had to do to accomplish this part of the test, my eyes gazed upon the frightening, fenced in forest, that I would be stuck in for a maximum of five days.

Anko warned us about the dangers Mother Nature had so kindly given us in the forest, and gave the teams either a Heaven or an Earth scroll. Our task was to steal the scroll we didn't have off of other ninja in the forest. We had five days to complete this task, and if we didn't make it to the tower in the middle of the woods before those five das were up, we failed. Katsu thought of this stage as hazardous. Akio thought of it as a challenge. I thought of it as impossible.

Once we were given our scroll (an Earth scroll), Anko herded us towards our starting gate, and warned us not to enter the forest before her command. While waiting for the crazy proctor to give us a go, Tenten and her team passed by us, on their was to their own starting gate. I waved my hand.

"Good luck, Tenten," I called to her, my voice shaking.

"You too, Kayami," she said, sounding just as afraid. While waving to my friend, I caught Neji's eye. He was glaring at me like I was some sort of hated Third World dictator. I didn't even glare back at him, instead, I turned up my nose, and turned my head away from him, crossing my arms as I did. I probably looked like an immature brat doing that, but he deserved it after what he said about my family.

After wishing good luck to my friend, the genin teams were realeased into the scary forest. Taking a deep breathe, I ran with my team into the mix of trees, vines, and enemies. We ran as fast as we could into the forest before any other teams could spot us. We didn't want our Earth scroll getting stolen at the very start.

As we ran, I got more and more scared. The trees around us grew taller, and taller, blocking out most of the sunlight. The ground was mushy, rocky, grassy, and uneven all at the same time. The whole woods was silent except for the pattering of our feet, and the wind whistling through the trees.

About an hour into the forest, Akio made us stop and stand on a huge tree branch several feet off the ground to speak.

"What's our plan?" he asked. "We should try and think of a plan to obtain the Heaven scroll from the others. Also, if we get attacked ourselves, we have to be prepared."

"You're right," I said, nodding, trying to abandon my fear. I turned to my other comrade. "Any ideas, Katsu?" We were all silent for a minute, thinking, until Katsu snapped his fingers.

"We should prey on the weak," he said. "If we want to get a Heaven scroll we should try and take it from a team that's either less experienced or less capable than us."

"You mean teams like the Rookie Nine?" I suggested. Katsu nodded. Although I liked the idea, the thought of stealing from the newbies kind of disturbed me. It wasn't really fair to them if we did that, but what choice did we have? Risk injuries that weren't life threatening to steal from one of the rookies, or risk our very lives to get a scroll from a team that could kill us?

"That's a good idea," Akio said, nodding. "And if any team tries to take our scroll..."

"We fight like no tomorrow," I put in.

"And keep the scroll out of their reach," Katsu added.

"Fine. Then that's what we'll do," Akio said. With that, we bounded off through the forest.

--

I didn't know how much longer I could keep this up. My team and I had spent two full days excluding this day in The Forest of Death, and I was exhausted.

We hadn't come across any weak teams, but we had come across a trio of ominous Grass ninja. If we hadn't been as quiet and fast as we were, we wouldn't have escaped from them with our lives.

Aside from the shinobi threats staring you in the face every time you rounded a corner, there was also the wildlife to keep you company. On the first day, my blood would have become lunch for a giant leech if Katsu hadn't pulled me out of the slimy horror's way. Also on the first day we were chased by a thirteen foot long anaconda. By the time we lost the snake, it was night time, and the howls of various creatures throughout the forest kept us apprehensive and afraid all night.

We all hadn't much energy, for all we had to eat so far was some berries, a few nuts (we probably ruined some poor squirrel's dinner), and a rice ball each that we had brought with us before entering the forest.

So, while walking towards the tower in the distance, I kept my eyes and ears open, hoping to catch a glimpse or a sound of ninja around us. Before long, I could have sworn I heard a twig snap. I spun around.

"Akio, Katsu," I whispered, frozen. "Did you-"

"Yeah, we heard it," Katsu said, drawing a couple of shuriken from his weapon holster.

"Alright, come on out! We know you're here!" Akio yelled at the forest around us. Nothing happened. Katsu glanced around the dense woods.

"I sense chakra," he murmured. Suddenly, I had an idea.

Forming a seal with my fingers as fast as I could, I cried, "Release!", and once the camouflage illusion had been lifted, down fell three shinobi from a tall tree I was standing under.

Lying at my feet were the strangest shinobi I had ever seen. The tallest guy was wearing a long, bright yellow cloak that matched his long hair that was tied back. The second tallest guy had light blue overalls on under a green, plaid t-shirt, and I thought he looked like a farmer. The last person who was stout and plump was wearing what looked like an apron over his green, camouflage shorts and shirt. The trio of strange ninja all wore a bandanna that bore the symbol of the Smoke Village on it. They looked no more than eighteen years old.

"Who're you?" I asked. Without a moment's hesitation, the three shinobi jumped to their feet and raised their fists.

"Alright, put 'em up! Put 'em up!" the yelled, bouncing on their feet, holding their fists to their face. Katsu, me, and Akio looked at each other, confused. These guys had the word 'stupidity' written all over them.

"What-?" Akio began.

"Listen to us, kid," said the ninja in the sunshine cloak. "We're gonna take your scroll whether you like it or not. Now we can either do this the easy way , or the hard way..." I stepped in front of the tall shinobi, looking up at him.

"Wait," I said. "How do you know we have the scroll you need? We could easily have the same scroll as you!" The farmer looking ninja laughed aloud, and held up a Heaven scroll for me to see.

"Does that answer your question, chicky?" he asked. "We've been following you for about an hour now, and that guy-" he pointed to Katsu, the one who was carrying our Earth scroll "- didn't cover up the scroll in his pocket enough, and we saw you have an Earth scroll." I looked at Katsu, who looked in one of the pockets of his cargo pants. Sure enough, our scroll was peeking out of it, showing the world that we had an Earth scroll.

_Katsu, you idiot! _I thought, biting my lip. Why hadn't he taken the time to hide it better? I turned back to the weird shinobi, and took up a fighting stance. I was about to get ready to fight them, but all of a sudden, Akio jumped into the air, throwing himself at the farmer ninja, his hand reaching for the Heaven scroll.

Before the guy could react, Akio snatched the scroll from him, and landed behind him, somersaulting as he did. Once on his feet again, Akio barely had time to react, for the camoufalge ninja with the apron jumped on him, and they began to wrestle for the scroll. We ran to help our friend, and the other two ninja ran to help their comrade.

Much punching, hitting, kicking, scratching, and even biting was involved while the two teams desperately tried to get the scroll. I received a black eye, and I couple of cuts, but that was it. The weird Smoke ninja were less experienced in combat than they were in fashion sense. Eventually, while trying to hold off the sunshine ninja as best as I could, I heard Katsu yell, "Akio! Kayami! Get behind me!" Unsure of what he was doing, I kicked my opponent where it hurt him most and ran behind Katsu, Akio joining me.

Before our enemies knew what was going on, Katsu threw a smoke bomb at them, and while the choking black smoke blinded our opponents, we ran off through the trees as fast as we could, towards the tower, and towards safety.

And while running I saw that Katsu was tucking away the Smoke ninja's Heaven scroll into his pocket as discreetly as he could.

--

**Yay! They got their scroll! And what will happen with the prelims? Dun dun dunnnn! Thanks for reading, everybody**


	12. The Prelims

My team and I stood before the parchment on the wall, in a small chamber inside the tower, in the middle of The Forest of Death. I read the parchment concerning the two scrolls we had in our possession over again.

_If qualities of heaven are your desire, acquire wisdom to take your mind higher. If Earthly qualities are what you lack, train your body, and prepare to attack. When Heaven and Earth are opened together, the perilous path will become righteous forever. This (blank) is the secret way that guides us from this place today. _The poem puzzled me. What filled in the blank? Was it part of the test?

"We need to open the scrolls," Akio said. "I think this is what the poem means."

"You sure?" I asked, turning to him.

"It seems logical enough that we're here and this poem talks of earth and heaven," Katsu agreed. He took out the two scrolls from his pocket and handed the Heaven one to me. Taking a deep breathe, we opened the scrolls.

Nothing happened. All we saw on the paper was the kanji for 'man' or 'person'.

"What the...?" I began. Suddenly, the two scroll began to smoke thick grey smoke, and the scroll grew warm in my hands.

Surprised, Katsu and I dropped the scrolls, and backed away as the smoke got thicker. There was loud bang that filled the room, and when the smoke cleared, we saw a dark, spiky haired chuunin with a bandage over his nose, standing on the two opened scrolls before us.

"Hey, I know you!" Akio cried, pointing at the young man. "You're that punk that wouldn't let us pass through the door at the first stage of the Exams!"

"Calm down, kid," the Chuunin said. "Don't you know how to show respect to your elders? By the way, the name's Kotetsu Hagane."

"What's going on?" I asked. "What are you doing here? Is this part of the test or something?"

Kotetsu shook his head, and explained to us that when the genin reach the tower, they had to open the two scrolls to summon a chuunin that welcomed them to the tower, and informed them that they had or hadn't passed the second test. He also told us that the poem on the parchment meant that Heaven and Earth stood for mind and body, and that the poem was telling us to work extra hard as Chuunin (ready ourselves mentally for mission, and train harder to improve our physique and stamina).

I took the advice the poem offered to heart, and vowed to work on my mental abilities. I was alright as far as my strength and physiqual ability went, but, upon reflection, out in The Forest of Death, I was scared out of my mind. In my opinion, no chuunin should be _that_ scared.

"Follow me," Kotetsu said, turning on his heel, and walking towards a small door at the end of the room. "You're going to join the other passed genin now."

--

We stood before the Hokage, the jonin, and the chuunin of Konoha, listening as the Third talked to us about the final exam and congratulated us on passing. While he spoke, I looked around at the arena we stood in.

Behind Lord Hokage and the other adults was a large statue of two hands forming the ram seal, and around the tiled, concrete area was a balcony that allowed spectators to watch a battle that would be fought here.

I also noticed that the Rookie Nine were among the passed genin standing around me. Even the loud, confident Naruto. I smiled as I looked around. I was glad the forest hadn't killed any of the newbs.

While looking around I also spotted Tenten and her team a little ahead of me. My smile widened, relieved that she had made it as well.

"Now listen closely," said Lord Hokage. "I'm going to tell you exactly what's going to be on the third exam-"

"Uh- Lord Hokage," said a voice. All eyes shifted to a man kneeling on the ground in front of the genin, bowing his head. "Before you do, please allow me to speak first." The Hokage nodded to the man.

"Very well."

The man who had interrupted the Hokage turned to us. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought he looked bloody awful: He had dark circles under his dull eyes, his hair under his bandanna was a little messy, and the guy couldn't form a full sentence without coughing.

"We must have a Preliminary exam before we move onto the final one," he said.

_What? _I wondered.

"We didn't expect so many genin teams to pass," the man, Hayate Gekko, said. "The Exam rules state that a preliminary exam can be held at any time to eliminate the ones who had too much of an easy time with the first and second stages."

I thought back and remembered how lucky Akio, Katsu, and I had been when those stupid Smoke ninja came across us, and immediately began to worry. Was I one of the people who had it too easy?

"If any of you feel that you're not able to compete, you have the option to bow out now," Hayate told us before going into a coughing fit. I heard an exasperated murmur sweep through the crowd, the nine rookies being the loudest complainers of them all, and once again, I was put in between a rock and a hard place. Should I go or should I stay?

I was tired, exhausted, and I still had that ugly black eye from the fight with the Smoke ninja, but I thought of Ibiki's tenth question that mirrored the duties of a chuunin, and the parchment on the wall that encouraged me to hone my mind, and make it less vulnerable. I stamped my left foot.

_I'm staying, _I decided in my head. I looked at Akio and Katsu, who looked ahead with determination etched on their faces. They were staying too.

After some washout from Konoha who I've never seen before decided he was at his limit and left, the Preliminaries started right away. After Hayate explained that one of us in a battle had to either admit defeat or die to lose, a panel on the wall opened to reveal a screen, which displayed two opponents at random.

The first match was against this year's number one rookie, Sasuke Uchiha, and another leaf shinobi, Yoroi Akado.

After climbing the stairs to the balcony, I caught up with Tenten, and walked beside her.

"Wow, can you believe this?" I asked. "A preliminary exam right after a hard five days?"

"I know," Tenten nodded. "But we're one of the people who don't have it too hard: I was standing next to that really cute rookie, Sasuke, while the Hokage spoke, and I heard his team mate and him arguing over some mark thing that he had a little below his neck."

"No kidding," I said. "And Sasuke's still fighting?"

"He said something about being an avenger and how he had to be as strong as he could," Tenten explained. "Personally, I agree with his team mate, Sakura. He should've bowed out."

After we stopped walking, I leaned on the rail and watched the fight between Sasuke and Yoroi with my team, a little away from Tenten and her team.

It was an intense match. Sasuke didn't use any nin-jutsu, only martial arts, and Yoroi's chakra-stealing methods were only making things worse. All seemed lost for the rookie when some weird, fiery pattern began to spread across his face and neck while airborne. However, seconds after the pattern spread, it disappeared, and Sasuke was able to defeat his opponent. Everyone, especially the girls, seemed happy about his win. I swear, I could've heard Tenten across the ocean when she cheered for the handsome Uchiha.

About three battles had been completed, and I knew with each passing match, either Katsu, Akio, or my own battle would come up sooner. As I watched the intensity of the battles, and the skills of all the genin fighting, I had begun to wonder if I really should have quit while I had that chance. However, every time I thought of quitting, I reminded myself of my promise to the Heaven scroll.

_You will not quit, and you will not run, _Adventure-loving Kayami told me. _You will stay, and you will kick butt... I hope..._

It had been some time, before a familiar name came up on the screen. It was my best friend's turn, and she was fighting a girl named Temari from the Sand Village.

"Best of luck, girly," I told her, before she jumped down from the balcony. She gave me a smile, and went to meet her adversary.

"Good luck Tenten!" cheered Lee. "Power of youth! Power of youth!" I nearly rolled my eyes. I admired Lee for supporting his team mates, but Tenten couldn't rely on being young to win. That Temari girl didn't look a whole lot older than her anyways.

As the fight commenced, Tenten did what she always did to gain the offensive side: Launch a bunch of weapons at her opponent until they broke concentration to block them, then she'd go from there.

But Tenten had been poorly matched with Temari. The foreign girl had a huge fan with her, and all she had to do was swing it around to parry Tenten's weapon attacks.

You would have thought having a bunch of pointy objects being blown back at your opponent would be enough to say, 'I'm better than you, forfeit now', right? That wasn't how Temari saw it. Oh no. She couldn't leave my friend like that. She had to pummel her with her stupid wind jutsu until poor Tenten was thrown into the air, and landed hard on her back, on Temari's huge fan.

"How boring," that Sand witch muttered, looking at Tenten (who was practically impailed on the fan) with a bored expression. "It wasn't much of a match." With that, Temari threw Tenten from her fan. My friend would have landed on her already injured back, had Lee not jumped down from the balcony and caught her.

"What are you doing!?" he yelled, shaking his fist at Temari, while he held Tenten. "Is that how you treat someone who gave it her all in battle!?" I nodded to Lee's words. Temari merely scoffed.

"Shut up," she said, rudely. "Take that loser and get outta here." I wanted to jump over the rail, and pull all four of those blonde ponytails out of her head. I thought there wasn't a person on Earth who could make me as angry as I was with Neji, but I was wrong.

Lee was about to attack the Sand cow, but she blocked him with that dumb fan of her's. Eventually, Gai coaxed Lee back up to the balcony, and my unconscious pal was taken care of by the medics in another room. I hoped she was alright.

"Kayami," Katsu said, nudging me with his elbow. I turned to him.

"What?" I asked. He pointed to the screen on the wall. I followed his finger, and felt my stomach drop into my toes when I saw the screen.

There were two names displayed on it: Tsukiko Abe versus Kayami Tsuji.

--

**Oh noes! It's a cliffy! Lol, I like to leave those and keep ya wondering :P Thanks for reading. More on the way**


	13. The Sixth Match

**Review response time! Yay! D**

**KittyLo-chan: To tell you the truth, Temari used to be my favourite girl character cuz I thought she was tough and cool, but then I saw her fight with Tenten in the anime, and decided otherwise! Lol! **

**CandyGirl999: Here's the fight ;)**

**--**

I felt as if I had been pushed off a cliff. It was time. I would have to fight. Gulping, I nodded and leaped over the rail into the arena, listening to the boys wish me good luck from the balcony. I approached Hayate, and waited as my opponent leaped down from the balcony and walked towards me.

Tsukiko Abe was an interesting looking kunoichi from the Mist Village. She had long, straight, ink black hair that was separated in two braids that hung to the middle of her back. She had one amber eye, and one brown eye. She had a slim face, a button nose, and a small mouth. While she strode towards me and Hayate in her grey three quarter shirt, black vest, and white shorts, determination glinted in her two different eyes.

"Match Six: Tsukiko Abe of the Mist Village versus Kayami Tsuji of the Leaf," Hayate annouced, before hacking up a lung afterwards. "Begin!" he choked.

Tsukiko wasted no time trying to gain the upper hand. She launched herself at me, not ungracefully, coming at me with all sorts of attacks: Punches, kicks, pushes, slaps, kunai, shuriken, everything you could think of. I did my best to dodged all of them, even though I cut my hand blocking her kunai blade.

_This calls for a little nin-jutsu, _I decided. I sped off to the side, and sign weaved as fast as I could.

"Clone jutsu!" I yelled. On both sides of me stood two simple copies of me. My clones and I ran toward Tsukiko, and tried to surround her, but the Mist kunoichi was too fast. With a single swipe of her kunai, and a toss of her shuriken, she cut down my clones with ease.

_Wonderful, _I thought. I decided to try something a little different. I summoned some chakra and made a few more hand signs.

"Earth Eminence jutstu!" I yelled. Shinto-sensei had taught me the un-heard-of Earth Eminence jutsu. While keeping my hands glued in a ram seal, mounds of earth cracked through the tiled floor, and rose up to meet Tsukiko, throwing her off balance. She leaped into the air to avoid the earth, but as soon as her feet touched the ground, another hill came to distract her.

While she was jumping around, avoiding my earth eminences, I saw the girl sign weaving. After looking closely at the signs she was making, I recognized the technique she was going to pull off, and got worried.

_Oh no! _I ceased my ram seal, and reached for some throwing stars to throw at Tsukiko, but it was too late, and before I even got the weapons out, she yelled, "River Rush jutsu!" Out of no where, an enormous flood of water rose up behind Tsukiko, and came crashing towards me. Hurriedly, I jumped up into the air to avoid the raging waves, but Tsukiko pointed a finger at me, and the water rose up, and enveloped me.

I was tossed, turned, and spun around and around like I was in a washing machine. Water got in my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. I couldn't breathe. And the worst part was with my constant spinning and turning, I wasn't able to do a jutsu properly, so I couldn't free myself from my watery prison. I knew that Tsukiko was controlling the water with her fingers, but I knew she couldn't keep it up for very long. The jutsu only lasted about a minute.

After what seemed an hour, I was thrown out of the spinning river, hurled through the air, and crashed into the wall over the balcony. I heard everybody go, "Ooooohhhh..." when I slammed into the concrete. I had made quite a few cracks in the wall, and my back hurt like the dickens. I fell freely from the wall, and hit the floor of the arena with a good thump. Luckily for me, the water mixed with the dirt from my previous jutsu had turned it into mud, and it cushioned my landing. Hayate approached me as I coughed up some water and a bit of blood.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You can quit now if you want."

Smiling, I wiped the blood and mud from my face and forced myself up onto my feet.

"No thank you, Hayate-sama," I said. "I'd like to finish this." Tsukiko looked at my muddy front and bloodied mouth and furrowed her brow.

"You Leaf ninja really don't know when to give up, do you?" she asked. I gave her a 'bring it on' smile.

"That's because we're damn good fighters," I said, wiping some more mud off my face. The Mist kunoichi shrugged.

"Whatever," she said, casually. "I'll wrap this up quickly." I gave her a determined look, tried to ignore the pain in my torso, and ran towards my opponent, raising my fists. Maybe close, hand to hand combat was the key to winning this fight.

The tai-jutsu moves Tsukiko and I exchanged were not slow paced. After every block was a hit, after every hit was a block. The girl was pretty fast, but the secret to her speed was staying far away, and slowly, I began to gain the offensive side in the battle.

I don't mean to brag, but I got quite a few good hits on her. At one point, I punched Tsukiko in the mouth, kicked her hard in the stomach, and bopped her on the head with the side of my hand all at the same time. She was getting frustrated, and my team mates cheering me on didn't improve her mood.

Then, I made a very stupid mistake. I decided I would try and hold my adversary in a head lock, but while moving behind her to grab her head and neck, Tsukiko grabbed my hand, threw me on the floor, and sat on my back, immobilizing me.

"You're quite the fighter, Kayami Tsuji," she said, pinning down my arm that wasn't trapped with her other hand. She bent my arm back, and gripped my thumb. "But, I'm afraid I have to knock you off your high horse now." I struggled to get free, but the Mist chick had a strong grip.

"Like I said before," Tsukiko chuckled, sinisterly. "You Leaf ninja don't know when to quit; You're outta your league, my friend."

"Don't listen to her, Kayami!" screamed Akio's voice from the balcony. "Show her what you got!" I struggled to be free some more, but Tsukiko held me down even tighter.

"Now, now, don't struggle," she said, bending my thumb back. "This will only hurt a little." With that, she bent my thumb all the way back, and snapped it without a hint of mercy in the action. I screamed in pain, my voice echoing against the concrete walls of the arena as splinters of pain tore down my thumb and hand. She had broken my thumb.

"Get off!" I bellowed. With a big push, I threw Tsukiko off of me, and jumped to my feet, ignoring the numbness in my thumb. I was angry with this girl now. She had insulted me, and my Leaf Village comrades. I took things to a personally level now.

With my uninjured hand, I punched her in the solar plexus for Akio. I kicked her hard in the shin for Katsu. I dodged her kunai blade and hit her at the back of her knees, making her fall, for Shinto-sensei. Once the kunoichi was on the floor, I jumped on her, and held my forearm against her throat, not pressing hard enough to choke her, but enough to let her feel some pain.

"Don't struggle," I told her, maliciously. "This will only hurt a little." I raised my fist and socked Tsukiko right in the nose. She let out a cry of pain, and I got off her as she held her bloody, broken nose.

"Alright Kayami!" Katsu yelled, clapping. "You did it!" I turned to look at my friends standing on the balcony, and smiled up at them.

Suddenly, I felt the hilt of a kunai get forced into the back of my head. I immediately felt dizzy. I began to sway on my feet, and I turned around to look at Tsukiko who had gotten to her feet. And although her bloody nose was twisted at an awkward angle, she smiled at me triumphantly, holding a kunai in her hands.

I was about to throw an insult at her, but before I knew it, I fell backwards onto the ground, and I heard Hayate annouce, "Winner of Match Six: Tsukiko Abe!"

_Darn it, _was my last thought before I blacked out.

--

When I woke up, I had a splitting head ache. I was lying on a cot in a room that looked like the arena I had just fought in, except it was smaller, and there were cots lined around the walls, some with hurt shinobi lying or sitting on them. Leaning over me, was my very own aunt, Aunt Aina, the one who worked as a medic at Konoha hospital. She was putting a damp cloth on my head. She smiled when I opened my eyes.

"So, you decided to wake up sooner than I thought you would, kiddo," she said to me. "That was a nasty bump that Mist kunoichi gave you on the head. I thought you'd be out for at least an hour or two. Good thing she got outta here before you woke up, or I'm sure she would have finished you off. She was pretty angry about you breaking her nose."

"What's going on?" I asked. "Why're you here, Auntie?"

"I'm helping with the Chuunin Exams," Aunt Aina told me. "After watching your fight, we got you on a stretcher, and got you in here. You're not in a critical condition, you only had a mild concussion and a broken thumb." I looked at the thumb Tsukiko had bent back in our fight. It was in a splint and was taped in place with medical tape.

When my aunt mentioned the fight, I felt a wave of failure crash on me. I hadn't won the fight. I wasn't going to become a Chuunin. I lost to that stuck up Mist girl, and I had to wait until next year. Aunt Aina sensed my disappointment and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, Kayami-chan, don't be sad," she said. "You gave it your all, and fought very well. I'm proud of you, as Riko and the boys will be." She smiled. "And I know your parents would be proud as well." I smiled up at my thirty-five year old aunt. She always cheered me up whenever I was upset. Thinking of giving battles everything made me think of my best friend.

"Where's Tenten?" I asked. "Is she badly hurt? Is she in critical condition?"

"You mean your friend with the chignons?" Aunt Aina asked. "She's been moved to the actual hospital. She's not in life threatening danger, but that Sand girl gave her a good beating." I frowned, wanting to get up off my bed, find Temari, and kick her over the side of the railing.

"Tenten didn't deserve what she got," I muttered angrily.

"Neither did you, honey," Aunt Aina said, taking the damp cloth off my head. She looked at the clock that hung on the wall across from us. "Well, you can go watch the rest of the prelims if you want," she said. "When I get back to the hospital after this, I'll give you a call and tell you how your friend's doing."

"Thanks, Aunt Aina," I said, getting up off the cot, staggering a bit as I did.

"Careful now," my aunt said. "You don't wanna be going anywhere too fast after that concussion you got."

"How do I get back to the arena?" I asked, rubbing the back of my head.

"Down the hall, third door on your left," Aina said. Thanking her, I left the medical room, and made my way back to the arena to join my team.

--

**Lol, yeah, I mentioned the Earth Eminence Jutsu from Under The Red Moon :P Blast from the past, eh?**


	14. Eight, Ten, Eleven

**Yay! Here's the next chapter! But, as always, shout outs:**

**Sakujoed: Thank you **

**CandyGirl999: You're welcome :D**

**KittyLo-chan: Lol! I haven't seen Cats, but I know what song you're talking about, and it's a good song XD**

**--**

When I joined my team on the balcony, I saw that Shinto-sensei had joined us, and a match between that lazy rookie, Shikamaru Nara, and a Sound kunoichi, Kin Tsuchi (our last names sound alike, don't they?) was just about finished. Shikamaru won the battle by making Kin knock her head on the wall behind her with his Shadow Possession jutsu.

After the two genin had gone back up to the balcony, the screen generated two more names: Souta Sarugaku versus Akio Mizuto. My comrade let out a whoop when he saw his name.

"Alright! It's my turn!" he cheered.

"Good luck, Akio," me and Katsu said in unison. Giving us a wide grin, Akio jumped down from the balcony, and sauntered up to Hayate, while his opponent did as well.

Souta Sarugaku was a boy who had graduated with us. I knew his brother, Tsuzumi, was a Chuunin. Souta and Tsuzumi did not look unalike. Both had spiky-ish brown hair, no bangs, dark eyes, and big ears. They even shared the same nose. Many said that Souta was Tsuzumi's mini-me.

Souta was another obnoxious boy, like Akio, but if I remembered correctly, he wasn't as smart, or as good as a fighter. Souta was determined to become a Chuunin like his big brother, and declared rather loudly as he walked, "Get ready to taste bitter defeat, Akio!" Akio laughed until he snorted.

"Don't talk yet, Souta," he giggled. "The match hasn't even begun yet!"

"Match Eight: Souta Sarugaku versus Akio Mizuto," Hayate announced. "Begin!"

Akio was the one to gain the offensive. Right after Hayate gave the word to start, he pulled three kunai out of his weapon holster and whipped them at Souta. Souta dodged them all and pulled out three shuriken.

"Two can play at this game!" he yelled as he threw the throwing stars at my friend. Akio dodged them all, and lunged for his opponent.

Souta and Akio's battle wasn't one of the most violent ones, but they still got pretty banged up. Souta had improved in his fighting skills since the last time I saw him, and was getting some pretty good hits on Akio. At one point, Souta tripped Akio and gave him a good ol' whack in the mouth. I was hoping Akio hadn't lost any teeth.

Close combat wasn't wokring out for Akio, so he escaped from Souta, and made a few hand signs.

"Transformation jutsu!" he yelled. There was a large puff of smoke, and when it cleared, I saw a small, fluffy little puppy dog sitting where Akio used to be, wagging his tail.

"What the...?" I said, squinting my eyes at Akio's transformation. Why did he do that? There was a rookie standing near me who had a dog the same size as the puppy Akio, and it woofed a confused sounding woof.

"What's he doing?" Katsu asked.

"Oh, I think Akio's got a plan," Shinto-sensei said, smiling. "Just look at Souta." Katsu and I turned our heads towards our former class mate, and saw that he had raised a kunai knife over his head, but was frozen, his eyes fixed on the puppy.

Now I understood. Akio looked adorable in his puppy form. What kind of person would want to hurt a cute little pup like that? Souta had seemed to forget that the dog was really Akio, and lowered his kunai. Whining, Akio got up, and trotted around Souta a couple of times, sniffing his shoes as he did.

"Souta! Snap out of it!" screamed Souta's team mate, Gorou Toyama, from the balcony. "He's not a dog, he's Akio Mizuto! Get him!" Blinking his eyes, and shaking his head, Souta snapped out of his trance, and raised the kunai over the small puppy. Akio grinned, showing off little canines for teeth, waiting until Souta had nearly brought the kunai down on him, and rolled onto his side, and transformed back into a human.

Just as Souta regained his balance, and was about to lunge for my friend again, Akio made a simple hand sign, and was replaced with a log. He ended up behind Souta and tackled him to the floor. My comrade bent both of Souta's arms backwards.

"Give up?" he asked.

"Never!" cried Souta. Akio pulled harder on his arms.

"Now?" he tried again.

"No!"

Akio pulled on his arms some more, and Souta cried out in pain.

"Now?"

"Go to He-"

Before Souta could finished his insult, Akio drew a kunai from his waist pounch and clunked him on the head, like Tsukiko had done to me. Souta stopped struggling and flopped onto the floor limply.

"Winner of Match Eight: Akio Mizuto!" Hayate cried, hoarsly. Katsu, me, and Shinto-sensei cheered as Akio got off of the unconcious Souta, smiling up at us. He climbed up the stairs and rejoined us, scratched, bruised, and a little bloody, but one happy camper.

After Akio's match, we watched two newbies fight. Kiba Inuzuka, the boy with the dog, and Naruto were to battle each other. Naruto reminded me a little bit of Akio. Both were blond, bright eyed, and loud and obnoxious. The only difference was that Naruto seemed to be a little more of a knuckle head than Akio.

The fight was fun to watch. Many times I thought Naruto had been beaten by Kiba and Akamaru, but that kid would not give up. Eventually, the fight ended, and Naruto was the winner. He was on Cloud Nine, jumping up and down, and cheering. I smiled. Naruto sure was an inspiration. He had the will power that I hoped to obtain one day.

Once Kiba and Naruto finished their fight, it was Katsu's turn. He was fighting a ninja named Houki Kuroukawa, a tall, curly haired, dark eyed boy from the Waterfall village. We wished Katsu good luck, and watched as he entered the arena, and got ready to fight.

"Match Ten: Katsu Togashi of the Leaf versus Houki Kuroukawa of the Waterfall. Begin!" With that, Hayate moved off to the side.

I would have expected either Houki or Katsu to go for each other and gain the upper hand, but neither did that. Instead, they circled each other, bouncing around on their feet. This was a certain step called, 'The Shadow', where the opponents play foot games with each other, and try to throw the other off to put them on the defensive.

Katsu was very good at The Shadow. He dances around Houki, pretending to lunge, and pretending to hold back. Eventually, as quick as he could, Katsu stopped doing The Shadow, and made some hand signs.

"Clone jutsu!" he called. Around him appeared about six or seven clones of him. I sighed, envious. Katsu was better at the Clone jutsu than I was.

"Which one is the real me?" Katsu (or one of his clone, I couldn't tell) taunted. Houki scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Don't make me laugh," he said. He mimicked Katsu's justu, and eight or nine clones appeared around him. As the clones (and the real genin) fought each other, I heard Naruto mutter unhappily from down the balcony.

"They're such copycats," he said. "They're using my techniques."

I shook my head, as I watched the fight. Naruto had used Shadow clones, not just regular clones. I thought he could tell the difference. I decided not to scold him about it and watched my friend's battle.

After some time, all the clones got cut down and disappeared, and all that remained was Katsu and Houki, battling each other furiously.

Both genin were really fast. I could barely tell who was punching and kicking who. Suddenly, Katsu was shoved hard by his adversary, and landed on his back, on the floor. Houki jumped on him, and began to pummel him so fast and hard, that eventually, poor Katsu cried, "Mercy!" and coughed up his blood all over the floor.

"Winner of Match Ten: Houki Kuroukawa!" Hayate called. I felt as if I had fallen down the stairs.

"That seemed to quick," I said. "Katsu should get another chance! He never forfeited!"

"He cried mercy, that means he admitted defeat," Shinto said. He sighed, heavy hearted. "I guess The Forest of Death and the prelims were too much for Katsu." I felt like crying as I watched Katsu get taken to the medical room next to the arena. A medic had given him a handkerchief, and he was still coughing up blood into it.

Poor Katsu. I knew he was better than that, but he was already pretty worn out, and that Houki guy was wicked fast. He must have eaten a shinobi food pill or something before the match. Unfortunately, we had a limited amount of pills in the forest, and consumed them all before we got to he tower.

I sighed. At least one of Team Shinto was going to the last exam.

While waiting for Katsu to come back from the medical room, Shinto-sensei went to see him, and Akio and I went to say hello to Naruto, Sakura, and Lee, who were accompanied by Team Seven's sensei, Kakashi. We talked about each other's battles and the one we just saw until the next two names appeared ont he screen.

Hinata Hyuuga versus Neji Hyuuga.

I raised my eyebrows. "That's a new one," I said. I tried not to sound very interested because I was still very angry with Neji, and was hoping this other member of his clan would beat him to a bloody pulp.

As Hayate announced the next match, I saw my least favourite person in the world walk towards the middle of the arena, as well as a girl.

The girl looked only about a year younger than Neji. I recognized her as one of the Rookie Nine. She had short, dark hair, pale eyes, and soft features. She looked like the shy, quiet type. She reminded me of a vulnerable, newborn kitten.

"I never thought I'd be facing you, Hinata-sama," I heard Neji say.

"Brother..." Hinata mumbled, her voice shaking. I raised my eyebrows again. I wasn't the only one who was surprised, because Naruto had another outburst that made me jump.

"Huh!? Siblings!?" he cried, perplexed. Kakashi, who was standing behind us, shook his head and told Naruto that they were both from the Hyuuga clan, but weren't bother and sister.

"Then what are they?" Sakura and I asked together.

In answer to our question, Lee launched into this explanation about how the Hyuuga clan had one Main House, or a head family, and that Hinata was part of that family. He also told us that Neji was part of a less important part of the clan, known as the Side Branch. I smiled when I heard this.

_Not important, eh? _I thought with malice. _Well, well, look whose riding a little pony instead of a high and mighty stallion._

"If they're cousins," Sakura said, "then that must be hard for them to fight each other." Lee's expression turned grim.

"Actually," he said. "A lot has happened between the two families over the years. Now they do not get along very well." I rolled my eyes and made an exasperated "hmph" sound.

"They're problem, not mine," I muttered, angrily. Naruto, Sakura, Lee, and Akio looked at me and raised their eyebrows. I sighed.

"Okay, I know, that wasn't very nice," I said. "But I'm not on good terms with Neji right now, so I'm rooting for his cousin here."

"Don't count your chickens until they hatch," Sakura warned me in a low voice. "Hinata's nice and all, but she's lacking in her abilities."

"Really?" I asked. "But she's part of the Hyuugaclan, how can she..." I trailed off when I heard Hayate yell, "Begin!", allowing the fight to commence. Instead of attacking each other right away, Neji and Hinata remained where they were. Neji was talking to his cousin.

"Forfeit now," he said. "You don't make a good ninja. You are too kind, and never resist..." I saw Hinata's hurt face as her mean cousin began to belittle her. I got angry with Neji. From his lecture, he made it sound like Hinata was a sweet, kind, considerate girl, so why was he preying on her like this? I glared at him from above the balcony.

_You weren't satisfied with just pushing me around, were you? _I thought, hatefully.

"I just wanted to challenge myself," Hinata said, quietly. "I just wanted to do it on my own..." Neji frowned and rolled his eyes.

"Hinata, you are a spoiled brat of the Main house, and people can not change them selves," he growled. I narrowed my eyes.

"You should talk, buddy," I mumbled under my breath.

"Losers are losers, and they will always be losers," the Hyuuga brat continued. He went on and on about how he could read Hinata like a book with those stupid eyes of his, and he began to analyse her every move and feeling. Poor Hinata began to shiver and tears welled up in her eyes. I felt a familiar urge to jump over the rail and bop Neji on the head for being a jerk.

_She's gonna do it, _I thought, angrily as I saw tears leak from the younger Hyuuga's eyes. _She's gonna quit. Neji's playing with her mind, she's too vulnerable for that kind of bullying! _As if reading my thoughts, Naruto leaned over the rail and yelled at Neji to shut up and leave his cousin alone.

As if by a miracle, Hinata gained confidence from Naruto's outburst, and challenged Neji as her equal. Finally, the fight began.

It was over pretty quickly. Hinata was no match for Neji's skills and speed. Still, she refused to give up. Only when she coughed up more blood than Katsu had did she say in her defense, "The person lost and suffering within the destiny of the Main House is not me, Neji, but you." I gasped, when she said this. I'm not sure what Hinata meant by that, but she had definitely burned her cousin.

Neji didn't accept what Hinata had said. With fury and hate burning in his eyes, he lunged for Hinata as fast as he could.

"Oh no!" Lee cried.

Faster than lightning, Kakashi sped past us, leaped over the rail, and helped three other teachers restrain Neji from hurting his cousin.

"That's enough," Hayate said. "The winner of this match is Neji Hyuuga." Neji, however didn't seem pleased. He continued to glare at Hinata while he was restrained by the teachers.

"More special treatment for the Main House?" he sneered. I very well could have thrown up at that point. That poor girl, fresh out of the Academy, had tried her very best, and nearly got killed by her own cousin for it.

I leaned on the rail and waited for the next match to begin, while Hinata was taken to join Tenten at the hospital. While I waited, I saw Neji make his way up the stairs, and walk down the balcony towards me. While he did, I stared at him furiously. When he noticed I was looking at him, he narrowed his eyes right back at me.

"What do you want?" he demanded savagely. I gave him the look over like a stuck up queen bee and hardened my glare.

"Neji Hyuuga, you make me sick to my stomach," I snarled viciously at him. With that, I turned back around to watch the screen that displayed the names. I heard Neji walk by me slowly.

"I could say the same about you, Kayami Tsuji," he said. He stopped for a moment, and gave me a look. "Why don't you try minding your own businessfor once?" With that, he marched off. I shot him a death glare at the back of his head.

I felt like killing him.

--

**Phew! That was a long chapter! Poor Hinata. Poor Katsu. But yay for Akio! Lol, the next chappy's coming.**


	15. Green Finch and Linnet Bird

**Disclaimer: I don't own the song Green Finch and Linnet Bird (or Sweeney Todd for that matter)**

**--**

I lay on my soft bed, wasting the afternoon away by listening to a music box I had been given on my first birthday from my great grandmother, who was now, unfortunately, deceased.

It had been roughly a month since the prelims. The ninja who had passed the extra stage were given a month to rest up and train for the third and final exam. I knew that I wasn't one of those ninja, so I went home the evening after the prelims with a heavy heart. However, my spirit was lifted when I came home to Riko, Tabito, and Kouta hugging me, and kissing me, and congratulating me on passing two out of three tests in the Chuunin Exams.

To make matters even better, a couple of days after the prelims, Aunt Aina called our house and informed me that Tenten was alright, and that she would be out of the hospital in no time. I was grateful that my aunt had taken care of her.

I smiled as I looked at the thumb that Tsukiko had broken a month back when we fought each other. It was still a little fat, but aside from that, it had healed nicely, and I could move it again. But it often cracked, and Riko told me not to do anything to crazy with it. But what crazy things could I do with my thumb?

I continued to listen to the music from my music box. The box was very pretty. It's exterior was wooden, and shaped like an elaborate bird cage. And when you wound the key, a little door opened to reveal a small figurine of a young girl holding two birds in her hands, inside the cage-like box. While the music played, the girl spun around. The song was as beautiful as the box itself, and I remember when I was young, my mother would wind the music box and sing me the song. I smiled fondly at the memory and began to sing it myself.

_"Green finch and linnet bird. Nightingale black bird, how is it you sing? How can you jubilate, sitting in cages, never taking wing?" _It was such a lovely song. But it was also kind of sad as well. It spoke of a trapped person, desperate to break free of their plight, and be their selves.

I continued to sing until the key stopped rotating, as did the figurine of the girl and her birds. Afterwards, I put the music box back on my shelf, and left my room.

--

"Wow, I'm going to be jealous watching the passed genin fight and become chuunin," I said as I walked down the street with Tenten. We were on our way to the stadium to watch the Third round of the Exams. Tenten shrugged.

"Don't worry, Kayami," she told me. "There's always next year for us." I looked at my friend. She had made a full recovery from Temari's brutal beating, but still had a scar from where she fell on the girl's fan. I frowned.

"I hope that Temari person loses in her match," I said. "After what she did to you, she deserves as much as what you got."

"I hope so too," Tenten said, frowning as well, "but we can't dwell on it too much. It's not healthy." I nodded in agreement and tried to forget about how Temari did my friend wrong.

"Hey, I'm sure we'll see Lee and Katsu there," Tenten said, a little perkier now. "I heard they're doing alright." The last bit of her sentence had some doubt in it. We both knew very well that after Lee's fight with Temari's youngest brother, Gaara, he was so hurt that he would never be able to be a ninja again. There was an uncomfortable silence afterwards. Me and Tenten didn't really want to talk about the horrendous fight.

"Anyway, it's cool that at least one on each of our teams has made it to the last stage of the Exams," Tenten said, breaking the awkward pause. I nodded, happy for Akio. However, the fact that Neji had moved onto the third stage the way he did made my blood boil. Thinking of him led my thoughts back to that fight I had with him a little more than a month ago. I didn't say anything to Tenten because I knew I'd just get a scolding from her. As if reading my mind, Tenten suddenly spoke.

"Hey, Kayami," she said. "I need to talk to you about that fight you and Neji had before the Chuunin Exams. You need to understand that even though-"

"Please, Tenten," I interrupted her. "I really don't want to talk about him right now. I just want to have a good day and watch the Third test without anything to bring my mood down."

"But, Kayami-" Tenten began.

"Please," I said again. "Tell me later, okay?" Tenten sighed, defeated.

"Okay, fine," she agreed reluctantly. With that, we continued to walk in silence until we got to the stadium.

The stadium was pretty crowded. Both ninja and citizens had gathered to watch the final stage of the Chuunin Exams. Tenten and I took our seats as close to the front as we could. After a while of chatting over the noise, I asked, "When are the battles gonna start? Isn't there a program or something that tells you who's up first and stuff?"

"Just look on that board over there," Tenten said, pointing. I followed her finger, and saw a big white board on one of the bleacher's walls showing who was fighting who. I saw that Akio was fighting some ninja called Kaoru Ohtori. I didn't know who that was, but secretly wished my friend good luck.

I continued to look at the board until I saw the first match. I nearly fell off my seat.

"Oh, are you kidding me!?" I cried, glaring at the board. On it were the words: First Match: Naruto Uzumaki versus Neji Hyuuga. I let out an exasperated sigh. "Why did he have to go first!?"

"Oh, Kayami, hush up," Tenten told me, angrily. I turned to her.

"Am I not allowed to express my dislike for certain people or what?" I demanded.

"You are, but it's getting very annoying!" Tenten said, crossly. "Can't you not complain about Neji for once and just watch the stupid match?" I raised my eyebrows. Tenten didn't get angry with me like this very often. I sighed.

"Okay, okay. Sorry," I grumbled, crossing my arms. We didn't exchange anymore words until the first match begun. I watched as Naruto and Neji met each other in the middle of the arena with the proctor, Genma. After a quick explanation of the rules, Genma let the two boys fight.

Naruto was preening with self confidence as usual. He started off by attacking Neji with four Shadow Clones, but it was no use. Neji defeated all of his clones in no time. After the clones disappeared, the Hyuuga prodigy gave Naruto an arrogant smirk.

"Become Hokage?" he asked him. "With that? It's impossible. Talent is decided at birth. Everything is decided once you're born." I rolled my eyes and slumped back in my seat.

_Here he goes with his stupid fatalistic ideas again, _I thought.

Naruto got angry with Neji and demanded to know why he was always deciding things. Neji answered that all people were born with an unchangeable destiny, all different from the rest of the human population. He confirmed that the only destiny everybody shared was death. Again, I rolled my eyes.

_Well, isn't he all sunshine and flowers? _

Naruto wouldn't take any of Neji's dark philosophy and created even more Shadow Clones, and attacked with even more determination than he had before. Neji eventually found his way out of the multiple Narutos, and the real one came at him with his fists raised. I thought Naruto was really going to get Neji, but I forgot about the Hyuuga's Eight Trigrams Palms Rotation. With the technique, Neji repelled Naruto, and sent him flying backwards.

I was on the edge of my seat. I was praying with every cell in my body that Naruto would win this fight, but it seemed hopeless. I quickly decided that it definitely _was_ hopeless when Neji pummeled him with a different technique that I had never seen before. When I asked Tenten, she said it was called Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms, and it inflicted much damage among the internal organs and chakra opening points. I watched as Naruto couldn't stand up and felt awful for him.

Suddenly, Naruto began to rise, and with sheer will power, he stood up. Neji looked annoyed.

"Just quit already," he said. "I hold no grudge against you-"

"Shut up!" Naruto yelled at him. "You may not hold one, but I do against you!" Neji asked him what he meant, and Naruto explained, not kindly, that because Neji had so much physical power, but decided to mentally attack Hinata instead, it made him madder than heck.

"It's people like you who call people loser who I will never forgive!" Naruto shouted at his opponent. The blonde boy made me smile. He was almost like the mouthpiece of my own beliefs about Neji.

"Fine," the Hyuuga brat said after a pause. "If you're going to go that far, then I'll tell you of the Hyuuga's destiny of hatred." My ears twitched when I heard this, and a leaned foreward, furrowing my brow.

"What's he talking about?" I wondered aloud.

"Just listen," Tenten told me.

As Neji spoke of a special nin-jutsu passed down the Hyuuga's Main House for generations, he undid his headband, and showed his opponent what looked like a brand on his forehead. It was the Bhuudists' symbol of good luck and protection, and didn't know why he had it, but I soon found out.

Neji told a story of a young, four year old boy who was part of a powerful clan. The boy's cousin was the heiress to her clan, and the day the boy got this so called 'cursed mark' was on the same day of the heiress' third birthday. It was also the day that the leader of the Cloud Village and the leader of the Leaf Village, had ceased their wars and disputes, and signed a peace treaty.

After the treaty had been signed, the heiress to the boy's clan was kidnapped, and her father killed the kidnapper. Unfortunately, the criminal was the Cloud Village leader who was trying to steal the clan's secret kekkei genkai. The Cloud Village was enraged by this, and demanded that the heiress' father be killed. If he wasn't, then war would be claimed on Konoha.

Neji said that the boy's clan refused to give up a family member of the Main House, so instead, they murdered the boy's father. That boy's father was Neji's father.

As the Hyuuga prodigy told this story, an unexpected feeling came over me. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I knew I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. While I listened to Neji's story, I felt something else that took me by surprise.

An invisible hand of the Hyuuga Side Branch had reached into my chest and began to pull and tug at my heartstrings. I tried to shake off the feeling, and release the hand from my heart, but the Side Branch's hand did no such thing. As Neji continued with his tale, the Side Branch's hand pulled harder and harder on my heartstrings until I thought I could take no more.

"The curse mark was put on me," Neji said, gravely. "I was made a bird in a cage."

_Twang _went my heartstrings. _Gasp _went a shocked Kayami.

I became deaf to everything around me. All I could here was the achingly sad song from my music box, which began to play when Neji finished his story.

_Green finch and linnet bird. Nightingale black bird, how is it you sing? How can you jubilate, sitting in cages, never taking wing? Outside the sky waits, beckoning, beckoning, just beyond the bars. How can you remain staring at the rain, maddened by the stars?_

The feeling which I had now identified as guilt filled my system. The song from my music box continued to play while my mind showed me memories that I didn't want to see at that moment. Along with it came the voices of the past.

_"You know, you really could be a little nicer to me!" _I heard a scornful Kayami say in my ear.

_"You are mediocre..." _I heard Neji's voice get mixed in with mine.

_"I don't like him..."_

_"Neji Hyuuga, you make me sick to my stomach..."_

I blocked my ears, trying to shut the voices up, but no prevail.

_"No one can escape their destiny..."_

_"Just because I don't have messed up eyes like you!"_

_"I. Have. No. Parents!"_

_"Kayami, you have to understand that..."_

The last, unfinished sentence was one that Tenten had said. I felt another stab of guilt when I realized that Tenten had tried so many times to tell me of Neji's horrible past, but I would never let her. I was too stupid and ignorant to listen. I felt like crying when the voices finally disappeared, and I had an awful epiphany.

"...What have I done...?" I asked myself, watching the battle that played out in the arena before me. Tenten looked at me.

"Now you see?" she asked. "Now you understand?" I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything until the fight was over, and Naruto came out victorious. Neji was hurried to the medical room. Once both genin were out of the arena, I stood up.

"Where're you going?" Tenten asked me.

"To see Neji," I said, bluntly. Without waiting for her to ask me why, I stepped over her feet, into the alley, and walked like a zombie towards the staircase that led to the medical room.

The voices of the past had returned one more time to remind me how much of a cow I was while I walked. But, I only heard one voice whisper in my mind this time, and it was my own voice.

_"He's just a mean arrogant fatalist with a frostbitten heart and that's all he'll ever be..." _My sore hearstrings ached when I remembered myself saying that.

Neji was a fatalist. He was arrogant, mean, and rude. But he had a reason. And what was mine? I had none. I thought back to the fight I had with him just before the Chuunin Exams. I remembered how I told him he was lucky and loved by his clan, meanwhile poor little me had no parents. How could I have been so blind? If I had opened my eyes, and looked at the Hidden Leaf genin around me, I would have seen that so many people had it worse than me.

I thought of Naruto Uzumaki who had grown up alone, ostracised, and with a demon fox inside him. I thought of Sasuke Uchiha who came home one night to find his whole clan dead because of his brother. I thought of Lee who hadn't the ability to do any ninja art and was tormented because of it. And I thought of Neji, a boy of four who lost his father to the destiny of the Hyuuga Side Branch.

Was it any wonder why he acted like he did? His parents were caged birds like he was, and his father had been murdered by his own family. And what had my parents died of? Nothing but a stupid mosquito bite. It was still dreadful that I didn't have any parents, but Neji's situation was so much worse than mine. And I had berated him for it. _I_ was the one with the frostbitten heart, not him.

I arrived at the door that led into the medical room, and I saw a man coming out of it. He was tall, had long dark hair, and white eyes. He closed the door behind him, and looked surprised to see me standing in front of him, waiting to go into the medical room.

"Are... Are you Neji's uncle?" I asked him, feeling my cheeks flush. The man looked at me curiously.

"Yes," he said. "And who are you?"

"I'm..." I looked at my shoes and heaved a sigh. "...I'm someone who owes him a big apology." The man nodded, and walked by me, saying, "You are not the first one today, girl." I looked back at Neji's uncle, who had his back to me, wondering what he meant. Shrugging, I opened the door, and stepped into the medical room.

I found Neji sitting on a little cot, a small scroll lying next to him, gazing out the window. There wasn't anyone else in the room but us. I closed the door behind me, and cleared my throat. Neji turned his gaze from the window, and looked at me, unsmiling. I timidly walked toward him a little and looked at the floor.

"Neji..." I began, my voice cracking. I shook my head, as I felt tears fill my eyes. "Neji, I-I had no idea. I'm so sorry." The boy continued to look at me, keeping a straight face.

"You know, a-all this time I thought being honoured as a genius by everyone had gone to your head," I continued, my voice shaking with sobs now. "But I see now i-it hasn't. It was all because o-of what happened to your f-father." I felt the tears spill from my eyes, and I wiped them away, refusing to meet Neji's eyes. "I had always thought I was the most unfortunate kid in the Leaf Village be-because I watched my parents die when I was nine and stuff," I said. "But I realize now that I'm not." I forced myself to look at Neji, who had a stoic look on his face.

"I was selfish, Neji," I said, shaking my head. "I'm sorry about what I said to you before the Chuunin Exams, and I'm s-sorry about all the other times too. You didn't deserve anything that I said, and I regret it a lot now. I'm sorry." I sniffed, and rubbed my eyes. Neji still looked at me without expression silently. I was about to turn on my heel and leave, under the impression that he hadn't forgiven me, when he finally spoke.

"I think, Kayami," he said, slowly, "you didn't deserve what I said to you before the Chuunin Exams either." I looked at the Hyuuga boy, hardly daring to believe it. Was I get an actual apology from him?

"You... you mean it?" I asked, blinking my watery eyes. Neji nodded, looking unsure of himself.

"Yes," he said. "I don't think you deserved those other times either." I let my jaw drop. I would never have thought Neji would admit to being wrong, but my ears were telling me the truth. After a pause, Neji looked out the window again.

"The second match will be starting soon," he said. I took the hint and nodded.

"You're right," I said. "I'll see you around, Neji." With that, I left the boy and practically skipped back upstairs, happy that I had made amends with him. As I did, I quietly sang the last verse of the music box song to myself, but I switched all the first person references to the masculine third person so that I ended up singing about Neji.

_"Green finch and linnet bird. Nightingale black bird, teach him how to sing-- If he can not fly, let him sing!"_

_--_

**FINALLY! I have written a chapter where they're not going at each other's throats! Oh, and I hope I didn't make Neji OOC. If I did, I'm sorry, and just pretend it was all a dream (Lol, Midsummer Night's Dream, you know? :P)**


	16. The Training Fields

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while, everyone. My school started recently, and I had some writer's block. Anywho, here's the chappy:**

**--**

I stood before the Hokage's coffin, holding a simple white flower in my hands. The spitting rain dampened my hair, turning it a darker shade of orange-red. The flower in my hand had rain water running off of it, and it looked like it was crying. I myself had not shed any tears over our fallen Hokage, but I was deeply saddened by his untimely demise. With that thought, I lay my flower upon the coffin, and took time to remember the Third.

I thought of mission days where Team Shinto would go to him for our missions. I remembered my Academy days when the Third gave a surprise lecture to our class. And I remembered a personal experience I had with the leader of our village: When I was nine I was still dealing with the grief of losing my parents, the Hokage told me on a starry night, if I looked hard enough, I could see my parents smiling down and watching over me among the stars. Ever since that day, I've always looked up to the night sky and waved back at the stars, saying hello to my dead parents.

Knowing Tenten and her team were right behind me, waiting to lay their flowers down, I left the coffin, and walked passed them to rejoin Riko and the boys who were waiting with Akio, Katsu, and their families. While walking, I passed Team Gai and looked at them.

Tenten gave me an acknowledging nod, as did Lee. When I looked at Neji, I didn't wait for him, and gave him a quick nod. After a pause, he returned my gesture, and I left them, returning to my sister and brothers.

I hadn't been able to tell Tenten much of mine and Neji's amends, what with the invasion of the Sound and stuff, but I told her the short version of what happened. She was happy to hear this. I myself, was pleased too. It had begun to get tiresome hating the Hyuuga boy all the time, and I never really liked to have enemies anyway. I was just glad we weren't trying to bite off each others' heads anymore.

I grinned, stopping at Riko's side and listened to the service given about the Hokage with seriousness written on my face. However, I was still smiling inwardly about the broken bridge which had finally been repaired.

--

Days later, I stood in the middle of the training field, in a fighting stance. I had just finished sparring with Tenten, now it was time to have a mock battle with Neji.

"Okay, promise me this one more time," Tenten said, before we started to spar. "This isn't going to end up like all the other times where Kayami storms off the field furiously, right?"

"Right," I said. Neji only nodded.

"Good," Tenten said, and she stood off the side of the field to let us fight.

Neji decided to use his Gentle Fists technique like usual. I relied on regular ninja art and martial arts. The first part of the mock battle wasn't very exciting. I danced around Neji a little bit in The Shadow, until he decided to try and punch me first. I got out of the way in time, and swung my leg around, trying to give him a round house kick to his side. But, the Hyuuga prodigy was too fast for me, and leaped out of my foot's way.

Eventually, I moved closer, and closer to him until we both depended on tai-jutsu only to hit each other. There was somewhat of a scuffle between us after Neji hit me in the shoulder, forearms, elbow, and cheek with his palm, and sent me toppling backwards. He nearly had me in a gentle head lock on the ground, but I scurried away from him, and prepared to use some simple nin-jutsu. However, he interrupted my sign weaving by lunging for me with his fists raised.

Neji nearly knocked me down, but I used the support of my left foot that was tucked under my behind to hold me up. My mind was stunned, and I forgot how to block properly, so instead, I raised my hands, and caught his fists in my hands. Neji gave me a curious look, blinked his eyes, and made the Byakugan disappear.

"Why did you do that?" he asked. "I just closed off two of your chakra points in each hand." I looked at my hands and shrugged.

"I don't know," I said, truthfully. "I just didn't want you to hit one of my vital organs or anything." Neji looked at me.

"I wouldn't have gone that far- this is only a mock battle," he reasoned. I shrugged again.

"Well if that's the case, then it was basic instinct," I told him. We were silent for two second until I looked down at myself again.

"Would you mind reopening my chakra points please?" I asked him. "It took the ones in my shoulders forever until they opened back up without your help about a year ago." Neji didn't say anything, but closed his eyes, and replaced his normal eyes with his bloodline limit so that he could see me opening points. He reached out with his palm and pushed it against my shoulder where he had hit me before. After that, he brushed his hand by my forearms, elbows, and my right cheek. Then he nodded towards my hands.

"Give me your hands please," he instructed. I did as I was told, and stretched them out, palm side up for the boy to re-open my chakra points again. Neji took my right hand first and pressed his palm against my for two seconds. Then he did the same with my left one. After that, we both got up, and Tenten approached us.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"He closed off some of my opening points again," I said, gesturing to Neji. "He had to re-open them." Tenten gave me a somewhat doubtful look, and nodded slowly.

"Okay, whatever you say," she said, sauntering off to get her weapons stuck in the targets around the field. I shook my head, wondering why on earth Tenten had given me such a look.

--

It was late evening, and was training alone. Training with Tenten was fun, but she focused mostly on weapons, while I wanted to focus more on moulding my chakra to perfection. So, I decided to practise alone that night. I was sitting cross legged in the field, keeping my hands in a tiger seal, moulding my chakra.

I tried a replacement jutsu, a transformation jutsu, and even the Earth Eminence jutsu, and I did them well, but there was definitely room for improvement. The better I got at ninja art, the more chance I had of becoming a chuunin in the Exams next year.

"What are you doing here all alone?" asked a voice. I looked up from my tiger seal to see Neji standing in front of me. I didn't break my hand sign and answered him.

"I'm moulding my chakra."

"You're usually here with Tenten," Neji noted, looking around. I shrugged.

"So are you," I said. "What are you doing out here on your own? Training?"

"I did my training today," Neji said. "I was taking a walk." I looked up at the sky which had become bruised blue with tiny, twinkling stars in it, as the sun sunk below the western horizon.

"It's getting a little late to be going for a walk," I said to him.

"It's getting a little late to be moulding your chakra out here," Neji pointed out. I chuckled.

"Touché," I said, smiling. I sighed and released my hands from my hand sign. "Actually, I have been practising jutsu and stuff for a while now," I admitted. "I'm getting a little tired." Neji looked at my hands resting on the ground.

"When I mould my chakra I usually keep my hands in a ram seal," he said. "I find it quickens the chakra flow." I smiled up at him.

"I'll try that next time," I said.

Before either of us realized it, both Neji and I ended up talking until the sun disappeared completely, and the night had taken on a darker shade of blue. The stars became more visible and dazzling, and while we talked, we both looked up at them. At one point we were both silent, until I glanced at the starry sky again and smiled.

"Hey, look," I said, pointing. "I can see my parents." Neji looked up at the sky.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Those are just stars." I shook my head.

"No, no, look closer, Neji," I said, pointing to a cluster of twinkling points in the dark sky. "My parents are right there." Neji squinted his eyes. I looked at him and smiled.

"I think I see your parents too," I ventured. Neji stopped squinting at the sky and turned to me.

"What?"

"Look at those stars there," I said, pointing to a bunch of stars near the ones my parents were in. "I see your father and your mother. Can't you?" Neji thought this was utter stupidity, but he looked anyway. After a pause, he felt a wave of understanding crash over him and smiled a small yet visible smile.

"Yes, I can see them," he said, not taking his eyes off the stars.

--

After a while, Kayami's chakra training and weariness had caught up with her, and she fell asleep. She didn't realize it, but after her head dropped, she rested it on Neji's shoulder like a pillow. If Kayami had even dared to lay a finger on him before, Neji would get annoyed and aggresively shove her off his soulder, but she had sincerely apologized to him about everything before, and did no such thing. The boy decided it was time for both of them to go home one she fell asleep. Although he knew he was disturbing Kayami's peace, he gently shook her.

"Hey, wake up," he said as gently as he could. Kayami's blue eyes fluttered open, and looked up at him. She breathed lightly through her nose and forced her head up.

"Oh, sorry, Neji, I didn't know I was leaning on you," she said.

"I think it's about time we went home," he said. Kayami nodded in agreement and got up off the ground, brushing the grass and dirt off her pants.

"Riko's gonna kill me," Kayami muttered as Neji got up. She turned on her heel, and left the training ground, calling over her shoulder, "Goodnight, Neji."

"Goodbye," Neji gave the leaving kunoichi a curt nod, and set off in the opposite direction. Before he left though, he looked up to the star studded sky one more time, and his eyes fell on the cluster of stars Kayami referred to as his parents. The Hyuuga boy gave a little smile, and went home.

--

**I've discovered the cure for Writer's Block: Fluff, fluff, AND MORE FLUFF! Lol. More fluff on the way , although it will come a little slower because of school and stuff, but I'll make sure it won't be too slow!**


	17. Definitely Not a Good Couple

**KittyLo-chan: To be honest, I've never watched an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh in my life (this is one of the reasons my friends call me a deprived child XD), and as for the 'Disturbia' music video, it was... interesting. The jerky dance moves made me wanna fall on the floor and start twitching, but other than that, it was pretty good :P**

**roseandthorns-chan: Yum, I love marshmellow fluff! Lol **

**Tentenrules4ever: Thanks very much :)**

**--**

When I woke up the next morning and went downstairs for breakfast, Riko was there, waiting for me with a plate of toast in her hands. She looked like she had something to say.

" 'Morning, o-ne-san," I said, deciding to use an honourific when referring to my sister. I wanted to sound polite because she looked like she was going to give me a lecture. I had a feeling I knew why.

" 'Morning, Kayami," Riko said. "You're up pretty early for someone who came home really late." Her tone was stern, a bit like a strict old sensei of mine I used to know in the Academy. I sighed, and sat down at the table.

"Yeah, sorry," I said, rubbing the back of my neck, forcing a smile. "I got caught up in training, then I met a friend, and we talked for a while." Riko gave me the plate of toast.

"Which friend?" she asked.

"Neji," I answered, casually. Riko sat down at the table beside me and gave me a curious look.

"This is a new name," she said.

"Well, he's a new friend," I said, biting into my toast. I looked around the kitchen and was about to ask where Kouta and Tabito were, but Riko spoke first.

"_He_?" she repeated. "Your new friend's a boy, Kayami-chan?" I gave my sister a look and shrugged my shoulders.

"Yeah," I said. "So what? Akio and Katsu are my friends, and they're boys." I decided to change the subject, because I knew what Riko was thinking when I mentioned I had been hanging around with a boy until the wee hours of the night. "Where are the twins?"

"In the living room watching their cartoons," Riko answered simply, and she changed the subject back to my new friend. "So, when did this boy become friends with you?"

"_I_ became friends with _him_," I corrected her. "It started at the Chuunin Exams, and it just... went from there." I wasn't exactly sure how to describe what happened to Riko without telling her that Neji and I used to be enemies before. I threw in a random fact. "He's a Hyuuga, you know."

"Who's a what?" Tabito asked while he and Kouta walked into the kitchen.

"Nevermind," I said. Riko chuckled.

"Kayami's talking about her new friend," she told the twins. "He's part of the Hyuuga clan."

"_He!?_" Kouta asked, sounding shocked. "Kayami's new friend is a _boy!?_ You have a _boy _as a friend, Kayami!?"

"Kouta," I growled at my brother warningly. Tabito, however, only made things worse, and laughed aloud.

"Kayami's got a boyfriend!" he chanted. "Kayami's got a boyfriend!"

"He's not my boyfriend!" I yelled at the two seven year olds.

"Boys, that's enough," Riko said to them. "Kayami can have friends that aren't girls, you know. Besides..." Riko turned her gaze to Tabito and gave him a look. "Aren't you the one who's always training with that girl from your class, Yuki Hatashi?" Tabito's cheeks glowed, and Kouta nearly fell on the ground laughing.

"TABITO'S GOT A GIRLFRIEND!" he shrieked.

"B-b-but, Yuki's just a-a friend!" Tabito stuttered, looking at Riko as if she had just betrayed him. I chuckled.

"Now you know how I feel, Buddy," I said to him.

--

After doing two simple D ranked missions, and training with my two team mates, I made my way over to Tenten's house to meet her. We were going to go to see a movie, just us girls. Before I went, of course, I washed up, put on clean clothes, and put on just a bit of make up. If I put on too much, Riko would send me back up stairs and tell to wash it off.

After meeting Tenten at her house, and waiting until she found her wallet in her mess of a room (knowing Tenten, she nearly left the house without it), we left her place and walked to the movie theatre in the Entertainment District of Konoha.

Usually in their free time, teenagers ranging from my age, younger, and older would come to the entertainment district if they weren't at school or on missions (if they were shinobi). You could often see many fellow Leaf ninja here, and Tenten nearly had a hissy fit when she saw the cute rookie, Sasuke.

"Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh!" she whispered to me, hysterically. Sasuke was walking down the street ahead, and away from us, and he was unaware my friend was ogling him from afar. "Look! Look! He's cute, isn't he!?"

"Calm down, you," I giggled, patting Tenten on the shoulder. "He's a year younger than us."

"So?" Tenten asked, not taking her eyes off the rookie ahead of us. I rolled my eyes with good humour. My friend seemed pretty taken by this new genin. Tenten was always taken by good looking, aloof boys. I was actually quite surprised that she hadn't fallen for Neji yet.

_Maybe that's what I should try doing, _I thought, smiling to myself. _I should try and hook Tenten and Neji up. Wouldn't that be cute? _I imagined the two together and my smile grew. They did seem pretty cute as a couple.

Before long, my friend and I got to the movie theatre, got our tickets, and made our way through the lobby towards our theatre. I carried a medium size bag of popcorn for us to share, and Tenten held a large soda with two straws in it for us both. We were nearly near the theatre our movie was playing in until Tenten was attacked by a little gremlin, and she nearly spilt the soda.

"Tenten!" cried a little kid, who had wrappped her arms around Tenten's waist. "I didn't know you were here!" I looked at the girl who was smiling up at Tenten. She was half my height, had long, straight brown hair, and bright, pale eyes. I furrowed my brow.

"Hey, aren't you-" I began, but another voice cut me off.

"Hanabi, let go of her," said Neji, who was approaching us. He frowned at the young girl. "You shouldn't have had those Poprocks..." he added regretfully under his breath.

"Hi Neji," Tenten said, looking up at the boy before us. "What are you doing here with Hanabi?"

"Hinata-sama is on a mission," Neji muttered. "I have to look after her." I finally put two and two together and inferred that Hanabi was Hinata's younger sister, and Neji's younger cousin. It made sense.

"What movie are you guys going to see?" Hanabi asked.

" '_Over Hana's Threshold'_," Tenten answered, gesturing to the poster of the movie behind us, depicting a shoujo girl in the arms of a bishounen in front of a beautiful sunset. Hanabi smiled, and clapped her hands.

"Oh! Neji and I are seeing that too!" she chirped happily. Neji, on his part, rolled his eyes. I guessed shoujo animes weren't his thing.

"We should sit together!" Hanabi went on. She turned to her older cousin. "Can we, Neji? Can we, please?"

"Fine, if it's okay with Tenten and Kayami," he said, begrudgingly. I looked at Tenten and she nodded.

"It's fine with us," she said. Smiling widely, Hanabi bounced into the movie theatre, with her cousin reluctantly trailing behind her, and me and my friend after him

--

_Over Hana's Threshold _was a movie that called for an audience of girls, and absolutely no boys. Unluckily for Neji, he was the only boy in the theatre and had to deal with his cousin, who was on a little bit of a sugar high after eating some Poprocks.

The movie was about a girl named Hana who fell in love with a boy named Gaku (small world, huh?), but he was a rich, posh boy, and she was a lower middle classed girl. Oh, the controversy! Oh, the drama! Oh, the romance!

And Neji was hating ever last bit of it.

I could tell because I ended up sitting in between him and Tenten, and he would not stop fidgeting. I couldn't count how many times I saw him roll his eyes at parts in the movie either. In my opinion, this would have been better if Tenten had sat beside her team mate for Operation Get My Two Friends Together, but Hanabi had a weird attachment to Tenten, and wanted to sit beside her, so we let her.

Once the movie was over, we all walked out of the theatre together, watching Hanabi be all giddy and giggly.

"Oh, that movie was so love-y dove-y!" she said, twirling around. She faced us. "Hey, did you guys like it?"

"Yes," Tenten said.

"Yes," I answered.

"No," Neji grumbled. I giggled a little bit. How like him.

Once out of the movie theatre, we walked down the street all together, and Hanabi finally calmed down, and stopped being hyper. She was a completely different person. Now she was relaxed, cool, and collected. Now that the seven year old had calmed down, I tried to make my little Tenten/Neji plan work.

"Hey, Tenten!" I exclaimed, suddenly. "Watch our for that mud puddle!" And I gave her a slight push, sending her stumbling towards Neji. The boy didn't even catch her, Tenten regained her balance herself.

"What the heck, Kayami?" she asked me. "There was no mud puddle back there." I felt myself blush, and looked back.

"There wasn't?" I asked. "Hm..." I continued to walk beside my two friends, trying to think of a way to get Neji and Tenten 'together', but I came up dry. Suddenly, an uncalled for thought hit me.

I didn't want my friends to be an item.

I didn't know why. I found myself trying to think of reasons why they shouldn't be a couple: They had been friends for too long, it would end badly, they were on the same team and it would be awkward, etc., etc... I also tried to think of why I had such a change of heart, but I couldn't think of any reason. I glanced at Tenten and Neji walking beside each other. They didn't look as good together in person as they did in my head. Plus, I remembered that Tenten was practically obsessed with that Uchiha boy, Sasuke.

That was it. That was definitely it. Yes, no doubt that was the reason. Tenten was too pre-occupied with Sasuke. It would never work out between her and Nej, Never have, never will. Yep, they were definitely not a good couple. I giggled to myself. How much of a silly goose could I be?

--

**Do I sense some denial from Kayami? Or whatever feeling it's called (sorry, my brain isn't working properly todayXD). Anyway, sorry about the long update wait. School's been keeping me a little busy **


	18. The Kiss of Noble Lineage

Days and weeks passed, and life became a big routine for me: Get up in the morning, go on a few missions with my team, train with them a little, then go train some more with Tenten, Neji, and occasionally Lee (if he wasn't with Gai). If I went on a mission that was a day or longer with my own team, then training with Team Gai was postponed until when I got back for a whole day.

Nearly every evening I had to come home to Tabito and Kouta taunting, "Kayami's got a boyfriend! Kayami's got a boyfriend!", and I nearly always had to tell them to shut up. The twins were really getting on my nerves.

To tell you the truth, I didn't want to have a boyfriend. I didn't know why, but the idea just... disturbed me a little. I guessed I wasn't ready yet. I was only fourteen. I mean, when thinking back, Riko only had her first boyfriend at sixteen. All that responsibility, and devoting time to a boyfriend kinda scared me. That was it. I just wasn't ready for that yet.

What really bothered me though, was that the thought of having a boyfriend was always at the back of my head. It made me restless. It stressed me out. It wasn't a good feeling. I couldn't count how many hours I stayed up past my bedtime because of that single thought.

Unfortunately for me, the thought remained with me while Akio, Shinto-sensei, Katsu, and me went on our second B ranked mission: Deliver an important notice to our 'allies', the Wind Country. We weren't aloud to look at the notice which was sealed in an envelope that Shinto-sensei carried in his back. We walked along a barren, deserted road surrounded by flat plains, a long way from the Sand Village, and I was bored out of my mind. Boredom allowed that pesky boyfriend thought to toy with me for the billionth time.

I shook my head, trying to rid the thought, but it stuck in my brain like gum on the sole of a shoe. I hadn't any idea why the thought of being in love tormented me so much, and that question bothered me nearly as much as the cause of it. I wanted to stamp my feet and shout to the Hevaens in frustration.

We were quietly walking down the road in silence, when Shinto-sensei stopped us. His face was taught, and his jaw was set in a firm line. He had heard something.

"What's wrong sensei?" Katsu whispered.

Shinto-sensei did answer. Usually when he didn't answer, something was wrong. All three of us became alert and looked around the road we were on for any sign of life. The silence was deafening, and I drew a couple of throwing stars from my waist pouch to reassure myself. Suddenly, Shinto-sensei pulled a kunai from his weapon holster and threw it at a telephone pole. To my surprised it jumped out of the way.

"Who are you?" Shinto demanded. "Why are you following us?" The telephone pole laughed, and suddenly, two men emerged from the wood, one on the other's shoulders to mimic the shape of the pole they were impersonating.

The men looked nearly identical. Both had messy red hair, dark, dangerous eyes, were tall, lanky, and dressed in what looked like kimonos used in traditional martial arts like I wore, but they were more robe-like. Around their necks were Sand Village bandannas.

"We got a sharp one, Yukiya," laughed the taller man. His companion gave us a sickening, yellow toothed grin, and drew two small scythes known as kamas from within the fold of his robe.

"We noticed you're Leaf ninja," he said to us sinisterly. "You're outta your territory." I furrowed my brow. Was it such a big deal?

"We were sent here on a mission," Shinto said, glaring at the two men. "Let us be on our way." The taller guy chuckled and advanced towards us.

"We don't like Leaf Ninja," he said. "You're the ones who prevented us from uping our military numbers when we teamed up with the Sound." I understood now. These guys blamed us for their loss of ninja when they invaded Konoha alongside the Sound Village, and intended to kill us. Disturbing much?

"That's wrong," said Shinto, pushing me and Akio behind him. "Orochimaru and the Sound betrayed you, not us."

"It doesn't matter," Yukiya said, walking up to us slowly, raising his kamas. "Ninja out of their territory should be punished. The Wind Country deserve their privacy." He turned to his companion. "Chikara, why don't we do away with them the Miyagi way?" Chikara laughed and nodded.

"Spoken like a true member of our clan, brother," he said. With that, the two Miyagi brothers attacked.

I had never ever heard of the Miyagi clan, and didn't know whether the leader of this country made these guys follow us or if they did it on their own free will. Whatever the case was, I stood ready, expecting them to come at me like wild dogs.

But they didn't.

They completely ignored me, and attacked the boys and my teacher. Usually, since I was a girl, enemy shinobi would come after me, knowing I wasn't any match for men's muscles, and try to get me out of the way first. I had no idea why the two brothers of the Miyagi clan were ignoring me, and decided to help my team mates fight instead of waiting for the enemies to come at me.

Since Shinto-sensei was helping Katsu, I ran over to Akio, who was fighting Yukiya, and attacked him from behind. I had gotten surprised, and dropped my shuriken before, so I relied on my fists to help my team mate. I gave Yukiya a good ol' whack in the back, making him yell. He turned his head to me, then yelled at his brother, "Get the girl! Get the girl out of the way!"

Chikara had abandoned his battle with Shinto and Akio, and was now running towards me. Smiling devilishly, I stood at the ready.

"Hit me with your best shot!" I taunted him. If I hadn't been so busy undermining my opponent, I probably could have avoided what happened next: While shouting, Chikara scooped me up, held in the air at his eyes level by my shoulders, and gave me a kiss on the lips. After that, he dropped me, and went back to fighting my teacher and comrade.

I started spitting, spluttering, and swearing. I couldn't believe it. My first kiss was with an enemy ninja? Not to mention a disgusting, homicidal enemy ninja!? I wanted to run all the way back home just to drink a whole bottle of mouth wash. I was too disgusted to think of the reason Chikara even did that.

I eventually regained my control, and was about to get up off the ground, but I couldn't. My muscles had somehow decided enough was enough, and they got really tired. Straining and struggling, I forced myself up onto my knees, and rubbed my eyes. Gosh, I was sleepy.

My eyelids felt like lead. I wanted to close them, and drift off to Dreamland.

_NO! _Adventure-loving Kayami yelled at me. _You and your comrades are in danger! Go help them! _However, I ignored Adventure-loving Kayami, and closed my eyes jut for two seconds.

The minute I closed them, I flopped back onto the dirt road, and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

--

Aina watched as her niece drooled in her sleep while snoozing in a hospital bed.

Kayami had arrived to her in a very odd state. One of the shinobi medics, Houshou, had brought her in to be attended to. According to him, Kayami's sensei and team mates said she got kissed by an enemy ninja of Sunagakure's Miyagi clan, and fell asleep right after. Aina didn't know who the Miyagi clan were, or why their kiss had an affect on Kayami, but whatever it was, Kayami would not wake up for anything. Aina tried shaking her gently, shaking her harder, nudging her, yelling in her ear, she even pricked her pinky finger with a sterile pin, but no prevail.

Aina sat by the sleeping Kayami with a book in her hands. The title read _Foreign Clans, Jutsu, and Medical Information. _It held information on how to treat injuries or sicknesses inflicted by ninja or clans anywhere else but Konoha. After reading the index, Aina had finally found the Miyagi clan, and what she read, made her eyebrows rise. She wouldn't have expected _that_to wake Kayami up, but after reading further into the article about the Miyagi clan, it seemed logical.

The hospital room door opening made Aina look up from her book. She saw her niece's best friend, Tenten, her sensei, Gai, her team mate, Neji, and her other comrade, Lee, on crutches. They entered the room, and Tenten gaped when she saw Kayami.

"What happened to her?" she asked concerned, as she walked briskly to the side of the bed. Aina took off her reading glasses, and stood up, holding the book under her arm.

"Something happened to her on a mission," she explained to the three genin and their teacher. "She won't wake no matter what we try."

"What happened exactly, Aina-sama?" Lee asked politely. Aina smiled, flattered by the boy's manners, and set her book down on Kayami's bedside table.

"Kayami-chan was on a mission with her team, when they got attacked by a clan known as the Miyagi clan. They made her fall asleep, and now she's remaining in the fifth, and most vulnerable stage of sleep, also known as R.E.M sleep. You can tell she's dreaming by her rapid eye movements, hence the name of the sleep stage." Aina pointed to Kayami's closed eyelids, which were fluttering. "Despite the vulnerability of this stage, we just can't get her to wake up."

"How was Kayami put to sleep?" Tenten asked, looking worriedly at her friend.

"They gave her a nice big kiss on the lips," Aina said, half serious. Tenten let out a surprised yell, and Lee and Neji made faces. Gai was one of the most shocked.

"I see this girl is too easily swayed!" he said, pointing to the sleeping kunoichi. "She must have never had a kiss in her life! She was so shocked, she fainted, and now will not awake!" Aina felt like rolling her eyes. She had been looking after Lee for a while now, and had to deal wit Gai nearly everyday, and he annoyed her to no end. Still, she tried her best to keep her patience while she explained why Gai's diagnosis was wrong.

"No, actually, that's not the reason why," she said. Aina grabbed the foreign jutsu and medical info book off Kayami's end table, and opened up to the page where the Miyagis' information was recorded."It says here," she continued. "That the Miyagi clan's secret kekkei genkai is a special kiss."

"What?" Tenten asked, furrowing her brow. "I don't understand." Aina was about to explain the bloodline limit to the girl, but Neji spoke first.

"People have three opening points to emit chakra on the lips," he explained, calmly. "Two on your bottom lip, and one on your top." He turned to the nurse. "They must have done something to Kayami's chakra when their lips connected."

"Right you are," Aina said, surprised by the boy's knowledge. "Kayami-chan was in fight-mode when she got put to sleep, and she had accessed her chakra, emitting it from the points all over her body. Her chakra opening points had been opened their widest at the time, and when that Miyagi clan member kissed her, he tapped into Kayami's chakra flow, and released tainted chakra into her system. The Miyagis often choose to kiss their opponent because the lips have the thinnest skin on them, making it easier to connected the opening points, and insert tainted chakra that make them fall asleep."

"That's ingenious," Tenten said, awed. "But how are we gonna wake Kayami up. She can't spend the remainder of her life sleeping!"

"That's the interesting part about curing this," Aina said, as she scanned the book's article in her hands. "It says here that to break a victim free of the Miyagi clan's Eternal Dormancy Jutsu, they must receive another kiss."

"Well, that must be easy," Tenten said. "You're her aunt- You can wake her up." The girl with the chignons paused for a minute. "That sounds a lot like that fairy tale I used to love when I was younger, Sleeping Beauty. Only, this is more logical." Aina scoffed, and rolled her eyes.

"The Western World has banned all common sense from stories like that," she said. "That's why they've got you kids thinking baloney like 'Happily Ever After' is gonna always happen. As for Sleeping Beauty, the legend actually tells of an old Fire Lord's daughter who was put asleep by the very jutsu that has Kayami-" The nurse pointed to the dozing girl "-sleeping there now. It was a shinobi of a well known clan that died out before even I was born that woke her up."

"Is that really the story?" Tenten asked, wrinkling her nose. Aina nodded.

"Look it up if you don't believe me," she said. "Anyway, the secret to getting Kayami to wake up his to..." The nurse squinted at the printing in the book. "... let her behold a kiss of noble lineage." The genin looked at each other, confused.

" 'Noble lineage'?" asked Lee. "What does that mean?" Aina flipped to the book's glossary, and scanned the pages until she found what 'noble lineage' meant.

"It says here," she said, reading. "That when they talk of noble lineage, they mean a kiss from either a leader of a country, a kage, or someone from a well known clan. Basically, they have to have a good pedigree." Aina looked at the genin worriedly. "But with the Third Hokage dead, and that Uchiha boy on a mission, no one I know can wake my niece up." She studied the junior ninja, carefully. "Do you kids know anyone who could wake her up.

All of Team Gai's eyes rested on Neji. He looked like he wanted to crawl into a dark hole in the ground and stay there forever.

"Neji can wake her up!" Tenten said, joyfully. "Neji's part of the Hyuuga clan!"

"Tenten..." Neji growled, looking at the floor. Though he didn't blush, the boy looked embarrassed beyond words.

"Ah, kissing! Such a youthful action!" Gai said, giving Neji a blinding smile. Suddenly, he began tear up. "One of my own students getting his first kiss.. It's so romantic in all it's puppy love glory!"

"Yes! Yes, Neji!" Lee said, just as enthusiastic as his teacher. "Wake Kayami up! You are her only hope!" Aina took note of the poor Hyuuga standing there, looking at his shoes, not saying anything. She approached him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Neji-san," she said, gently. "I know you may not take any romantic interest in Kayami-chan, but you're the only person here right now that can wake her up. It would make life so much easier for everyone. Please do this for her." Aina smiled. "I'll make everyone swear to not tell anyone." Neji looked up at Kayami's aunt, his expression stony.

"Fine," he said, stiffly. Aina smiled, and patted the boy on the shoulder.

"Thank you, Neji," she said, sincerely. "You have to get some of your chakra to flow into Kayami's system to wake her up when you kiss her. Good luck." Then, Aina turned to the rest of the team. "Let's go wait elsewhere," she said. "Neji will come get us when Kayami wakes up." With that, the nurse herded the ninja out of the hospital room, trying her best not to grab a roll of tape and wind it around Gai's mouth when he kept giving last minute advice to Neji as he walked out of the room. After everyone was out of the room, she shut the door, leaving the Hyuuga boy and the sleeping girl alone.

--

Neji didn't want to be here. He wanted to run far, far away from Konoha and never come back. He had never been so embarrassed, and he hoped his team would keep their mouths shut about this, or else he might just have to kill them.

Swallowing hard, Neji approached Kayami's bed and looked upon the sleeping kunoichi's visage. She was relaxed, breathing hevily, and at peace, unaware she was going to get kissed in a little while.

Knowing he didn't need his Byakugan for this, Neji called upon a bit of his chakra, and hesitantly leaned over the bed, hovering over Kayami's face. Short of breath, he slowly cosed the gap between his and his friend's lips.

**--**

**If anyone got confused, when Aina referred to the 'Western World' I meant for her to be talking about the Americas, where all the good fairy tales are made into movies. Lol, it was fun making up that bit about Sleeping Beauty :P**


	19. The Big Black Horse and the Cherry Tree

**Thanks for the reviews, everybody You guys are the best!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Big Black Horse in a Cherry Tree!**

**--**

I didn't know where I was. Everything was silent around me. All I could hear was the pattering of my feet as I walked, and the thumping of my own heart. I heard them both one after the other, and it sounded like the beat of a drum, or a tambourine.

I was walking up a grass hill, towards a cherry tree. I didn't know why, but I felt like a just needed to get there. Like I needed the tree to help me obtain something very important.

While walking towards the cherry tree, I heard another tattoo behind me. I knew for sure it wasn't me, but another being behind me. When I turned around, I saw a big, feral-looking midnight black stallion following me. I immediately felt terrified. The horse seemed to sense my fear, and did the most amazing thing: It opened its mouth and spoke.

"Don't be afraid," he told me in a deep voice. "And don't look back- Just keep on walking." Unable to respond to the absurd creature, I turned around and continued to walk, the big black horse following me as I did. I could feel his warm, hay-smelling breath on the back of my neck, and I got even more scared. Suddenly, just as a reached the cherry tree, the horse nuzzled the small of my back, and spoke again.

"Now look this way," he said. Unsure of what the animal was doing, I turned around to find it smiling at me.

"Hey, lady," the horse nickered. "Will you marry me?"

My fear disappeared and I felt joy and love rush through my veins. I was about to say yes to the horse, when out of the blue, my fear came back, and refused to let me accept the horse's proposal.

"No, no, I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head. "You're not the one for me." I had evidently discourage the stallion, for his ears drooped, and he lowered his head. Frowning, he looked up at me with his big dark eyes.

"Then can you give me but one kiss?" he asked. "Please, pretty lady?"

Although fear still remained with me, I tried to ignore it, leaned over, and held the horse's drooped head in my hands. I brought him up to my eye level, and gave him a smile. With that, I gave him a little kiss on his velvety nose. I liked the feeling of his soft muzzle on my lips, so I kissed him one more time, standing under that important cherry tree...

--

I emerged from my dream slowly, and I didn't know what was going on. I confused reality with imagination, and I couldn't really tell the two apart. One thing I knew for sure though, was that I was no longer on that grassy hill, under the cherry tree, but lying down, in a soft place, indoors. But the weird thing was, I was still kissing that big black horse.

Slowly, I opened my eyes, and I could not believe what was happening.

I was not kissing a horse on the nose at all. Instead, leaning over my bed, I found myself kissing my former enemy, Neji Hyuuga, smack dab on the lips.

I felt fire works go off in my brain. I was to shocked to even scream. Instead, I turned my head away from him, breaking up the weird kiss, and he backed away from the side of my bed when he saw I was awake.

"What the heck are you doing-!?" I asked him, eyeing him from my hospital bed. Suddenly, I felt as if I had been hit in the chest with a football, and I found it hard to breathe.

"Calm down," Neji told me, crossing his arms. "You were put to sleep, and I needed to wake you up- It was the only way." I wasn't listening to him. Instead, I had a hand over my heart, and I was trying to breathe, but I found I couldn't.

"I-I-c-can't b-breathe!" I gasped, feeling myself begin to panic. Neji looked at me.

"What?" he said. I continued to go into panic mode while I tried desperately to get some air in my lungs.

"Oh God, I think I'm gonna be sick!" I choked as I felt waves of nausea in my stomach.

"Honestly," Neji said, crossly. "Can't you be mature about this? I had to-"

"Neji, I'm not kidding!" I yelled at him, as I began to shake all over. Along with my shortness of breath, nausea, and shivers, I felt a dark, deep sense of dread overcome me above all else. I began to thrash and flail in my bed, kicking my feet wildly, as I yelled for my aunt, knowing I was in a hospital.

Neji ran out of the room, and returned a minute later with my aunt and his own team. By that time, I had worked myself up into such a frenzy that I began to cry, and I accidentally tore the bed sheets. I just wanted to get out of there. I felt like I had to run away from... Wow, I didn't even know what I was terrified of.

Aunt Aina told the other shinobi to leave the room, while she tried to restrain me. I didn't know what was happening, and I thought was going to die. I thought I was having a heart attack.

"Calm down, Kayami!" Aina cried, trying to stop my thrashing. "What's wrong?"

"I can't breathe!" I exclaimed. "I'm sick! I'm scared, Auntie! HELP ME!"

It took three medics, excluding my aunt to hold me down, so that I could be tranquilized. After the needle entered my skin, and the serum entered my body, I finally relaxed, and fell back asleep. I didn't dream this time.

--

I lay on my bed, in my room, made dark by my shut blinds. I had been up in my room for the whole day.

I was never going outside again.

Ever.

A day after I got out of the hospital, Aunt Aina told me, I wasn't having a heart attack, but an anxiety attack. We weren't sure what caused it, so Riko spoke to Gaku, and he agreed to take me as his client to figure out what was wrong with me. After recounting the events before and after I woke up, Gaku had come to a startling diagnosis, and I couldn't believe it.

I took my pillow from it's usual place, held it against my face, and screamed in frustration and embarrassment into it.

I was a philophobic.

I was someone who was afraid of falling or being in love.

My life was over as I knew it.

--

**It was short, I know. Gomen, gomen. The next one will probably be longer**


	20. Kayami the Hurt Goldfish

**Kitty Lo: I have you to thank for that little princess bit- Your story inspired it. Thankies **

**roseandthors: Thank you :)**

**Sakujoed: **

**CandyGirl: Lol, I was kind of scaring myself while writing that part. I do that a lot (Then again, I'm a big scaredy cat, and I can't even sleep without my closet closed) XD**

**--**

I liked Gaku. I really did. He was dark eyed, tanned, he had attractively messy hair, he was smart, and I thought he was a great boyfriend for my sister. I could never remember a time I got angry with him.

Right now, was a first.

I was sitting in his neat, business-like office in a big, comfy chair, while he sat at his desk in front of me, scribbling down notes while he asked me questions, and he was really starting to bug me. I don't think I could take another minute of him asking, "And how do you, as an individual, feel about that?". I must have been a little cranky because of my lack of sleep, and just the overall fact that I'm now a freak.

"So, tell me what your dream you had in the hospital was about one more time," Gaku said, looking up from his notes. I huffed, and gave him a indignant look. This was, like, the fifth time he had asked me that since we started these weekly sessions.

"I told you already," I said to him. "I dreamed about a big horse that was following me around, asking me to marry him."

"What did the horse look like?" Gaku pressed.

"It was big, black, and kinda scary."

"Where did the dream take place?"

"On a grassy hill that had a cherry tree on the top of it."

"How did you, as an individual, feel in the dream?" I wanted to put a tack on his chair.

"For the billionth time, I was scared of the horse, and I felt like the cherry tree was really important to me." Gaku pressed some more details out of me until he finally figured out the meaning of my dream.

It turns out the big black horse that was following me represented two things: My... 'condition', and the one I code named the Boy-Who-Will-Go-Unamed. The cherry tree represented my femininity and luck. Gaku explained to me that my dream was basically foretelling my anxiety attack, and my philophobia. I felt like crying.

"This is so dumb!" I said, throwing my head back, and frowing up at the office's cieling. "How can I all of a sudden become a freak like this!? I had a crush on one of the cutest boys in my class when I was eight! I saw _Over Hana's Threshold _for the love of God! How can I all of a sudden be afraid of falling in love!?"

"Don't call yourself a freak, Kayami, your fear is actually quite common," Gaku said, calmly. "This phobia will reveal itself to you in different ways; there are certain things that just trigger anxiety attacks and sudden realizations like that." I held my head in my hands.

"This is so embarrassing," I mumbled. "This makes no sense."

"Believe me, Kayami, it will," Gaku said, trying to sound sympathetic. "We just have to figure out what caused you philophobia first."

--

Work life and personal life should never EVER mix. Most people try to keep it that way. Unfortunately for some (like me), their personal, mortifyingly embarrassing personal lives get mixed in with their work lives.

After my team came back from completeing their mission, Akio and Katsu heard the news, and began asking me all sorts of things.

"What happened? I heard you had a heart attack," Akio said.

"I heard you got kissed by one of the Leaf genin," Katsu put in.

"I heard you kissed Neji!" Akio giggled, immaturely. "I thought you didn't like him!" I seldom got angry with my team mates, but at that point, I wanted to box both their ears. Shinto-sensei sensed by discomfort and told my comrades off.

"Boys, that's enough, it's Kayami's business," he scolded. Akio and Katsu didn't ask another question, and kindly told me to talk to them when I was ready.

It's too bad people can't be as kind as Katsu and Akio. I have no idea how the word got out, but I had become the hottest topic for gossip among the village genin. I had people I didn't even know coming up to me and asking stupid question on the streets.

"Hey, aren't you that girl who's afraid of having a boyfriend?"

"Are you scared of kissing?"

"Why are you afraid of boys?"

"Are you scared of Neji Hyuuga?" (...Yeah, somebody actually said that. It just goes to show how bad the Hidden Leaf genin would be at games like telephone)

I wanted to crawl into a secluded hole in the middle of Konoha's forest floor where nobody lived, and just die there. I was seriously considering it. Life had been Hell, having people talk behind my back, and having to be recognized as 'weird' or 'strange'.

Some people were still loyal to me, though. Tenten promised she would not say a word no matter what anybody asked her, and tried to make me feel a little better about my situation by giving me one of her sharpest, flashiest kunai knives. I appreciated the gesture.

Then, of course, there was Riko, who had become an insomniac, researching philophobia on Google until the wee hours of the night to help me out. Tabito and Kouta had given me a pat on the shoulder (Hey, they're seven year olds, what else are they supposed to do?), and Gaku had sworn he wouldn't tell anything to anybody. Not even the adults.

Despite this, I was still disturbed and restless. Above all, though, I was cut and bleeding inside. True, I was a girl who feared love, but that didn't stop the feeling from coming up and bothering me.

Gaku told me the very moment I discovered I was a philophobic was when I woke up to find the Boy-Who-Will-Go-Unamed (a.k.a. Neji) kissing me (_No duh, Sherlock, _I had thought), which meant before that incident, I must have been slowly, and unknowingly falling for him. I thought back and remembered how whenever my brothers taunted me by implying that Neji was my boyfriend, the thought always bothered me and stressed me out. My phobia seemed so unreal, yet logical. I could have kicked myself for not realizing it sooner.

But it was the truth, and one couldn't hide from the truth: I loved the boy I used to hate with every fibre in my body. I remembered before getting totally freaked out, and having that panic attack in the hospital, the split second I woke up and saw and felt Neji kissing me, I felt like I had just accomplished a life long dream of mine. I was so happy and glad. Not that I always dreamed about kissing Neji. I used to loath him more than the Devil himself. How times have changed.

Ever since I got out of the hospital, I had avoided Neji at all costs. I knew that kiss he gave me was strictly for curing me and nothing else, but he still must have been as embarrassed as me. Heck, I wondered how he was handling the gossip about us. Were random people coming up to him and asking him dumb questions too? Probably. He was the prodigy of the Hyuuga clan, and his first kiss was with some oversensitive philophobic orphan for crying out loud!

Though if I saw Neji anytime soon, I'd probably jump off a cliff, I couldn't fight the fact that I missed him. I missed him so, so much. I wanted to see him, but at the same time, I didn't. I wanted to talk with him, but at the same time, I'd rather run into a hibernating bear's cave. I wanted to kiss him again, but at the same time, I'd rather kiss a dog.

Longing for the boy passed over into my dreams as well, and one night, I woke up to find myself having another panic attack because of a dream I had about Neji and I. Riko had to hold me still as best as she could until I fell back asleep. I swear, the whole village could have heard my screaming. A neighbour actually knocked on our door in the middle of the night to see if everything was alright.

What really humiliated me was that Neji had found out that I liked him without me saying anything to him. He probably got some second hand story about me being obsessed with him from the day we met and how I probably faked being asleep just so that he could kiss me. It wasn't true at all. But, a little goldfish can't fight and defeat a big, scary shark, can she?


	21. Embarrassing Moments

**roseandthorns-chan: Really? Whoa, I hope I don't dream of an octopus anytime soon XD**

**Tentenrules4ever: Yeah, the title choice was a little strange, but I'm weird like that :P**

**KittyLo-chan: I think you'll remember two people from Under the Red Moon in this chapter ;)**

**CandyGirl-chan: Thanks :)**

**--**

For weeks now I had been seeing Gaku, and nothing seemed to be helping me cure my phobia. Riko's boyfriend had been asking me about my childhood so far, and I was now up to that traumatic experience I had when I was eight, and I saw my old cat get run over by a milk truck, but that didn't seem to have any relation to my fear.

On top of that, I had gotten used to genin on the street looking at me funny and sometimes whispering behind their hands to each other. It still bothered me a little, but I had begun to learn to get used to it.

Or so I thought.

The other day, I was walking back home from a mission I accomplished with my team, when I heard two foot steps in perfect unison a little further behind me. Along with the foot steps, I heard people talking loud enough for me to hear.

"Ugh, it's that weird girl again," said one voice.

"The one that's afraid to have a boyfriend?" asked another. Furrowing my brow, I turned around to see who was behind me.

To my utter discontent I found two girls I graduated with following me. Their names were Tsubaki Ito and Ibara Maruyama. These girls were absolute cows, and no decent person liked them at all. I hadn't seen them since I graduated, but I had heard their other team mate moved to the Vegetable Country, and they were awaiting a new team mate. But their team issues were the least of my concerns. I knew they were following me to bother me.

"Go away," I told them, and I began to walk off again, but Ibara ran up ahead of me and blocked my path.

"So, you got a kiss from Mr. Hot-Shot of our graduating class, huh?" she said.

"What's it to you, Meat Head?" I asked the mean girl.

"You know how many girls would _love _to get a kiss from a guy from such an important clan?" Tsubaki hissed in my ear, coming up behind me. "And Neji wasted it on _you_, and _you_ didn't even appreciate it?" Ibara flipped her long brown hair and scoffed.

"It's a good thing that Sasuke Uchiha hasn't wasted his first kiss yet," she noted disdainfully. Ibara was unaware that Sasuke had in fact already kissed someone, but he nor Naruto liked to talk about it.

"It wasn't my decision to become a philophobic, it just happened, okay?" I growled. "Now, if you excuse me, I'd like to get home to my siblings." I tried to push by the two girls, but they shoved me back, and gave me the once over.

"What's he got going for you?" Tsubaki demanded, and I could have sworn I heard traces of jealousy lace her voice. "You're not even that pretty."

"I don't care what you or anybody else thinks," I half lied, glaring at the two girls. "Besides, Neji's got nothing going for me; I had tainted chakra in my system, and he had to give me some of his chakra to clear away the bad stuff."

"And you need a kiss for that?" Ibara asked me, cocking one eyebrow.

"My aunt, who's a nurse, said the lips were the best place for chakra to enter the body because of its thin skin." I gave the two witches a look. "Why am I explaining this to you, anyway? You two are just a couple of disgusting toads, and I don't wanna get my hands slimy. I'm going home." With that, I roughly shoved passed Ibara and Tsubaki and continued on my way. I thought for a minute I had them defeated, but I heard Tsubaki's shrill voice scream loudly so that the whole street could here.

"Hey! Kayami Tsuji!" she shrieked with sickening delight, half to me, half to the bystanders on the street. "How many times do the Hyuuga family have to tell you to leave their prodigy alone!? Don't go trespassing on their compound for, like, the fiftieth time today, don't you think it's enough!?" I heard a couple of people laugh loudly behind me. I gasped, turned around, and looked at the two girls, who grinned evilly back at me.

I threw an awful insult at the girls, and took off running down the street, trying my best not to start blubbering like a baby on my way.

--

Team Eight stood off to the side of the street, watching poor Kayami run off while Tsubaki and Ibara shrieked with laughter.

"Man, those girls are really nasty," Kiba said, frowning. "Who are they?"

"Tsubaki Ito and Ibara Maruyama," Shino answered, calm as always. "They're a year ahead of us. If I'm not mistaken, they were known as the 'mean girls' back in the Academy."

"Well, that Kayami girl didn't really deserve what she got," Kiba grumbled, crossing his arms. "Even if her phobia is kinda... Well, you know..." Akamaru, who was on Kiba's head, barked in agreement.

Hinata gazed sorrowfully at the street, and the two girls laughing. She felt rather bad for both Kayami and her cousin. She had heard different versions of what happened in the hospital weeks ago, and couldn't decide which story was the most accurate. Hinata knew if she was in Kayami's place, and Naruto was in Neji's place... Well, the very thought made her whole face red.

Aside from sympathizing with Kayami, Hinata also felt really bad for Neji. For the past weeks, her cousin had been subjected to people asking questions about what happened, or whether he "liked it" or not. Neji didn't show much emotion on the outside, but Hinata knew very well he was awfully embarrassed by the whole situation. She could tell because even she tried to ask what happened politely, and her cousin refused to tell her anything.

With her thoughts a little unsettled, Hinata followed her team, and left the two cackling hyenas in the middle of the street.

--

"Neji, I need to talk to you," Hiashi told his nephew at the dinner table that evening. Neji looked up at his uncle, and asked him what was wrong, knowing what this lecture or discussion might be about.

"I hear rumours and stories are going around about you in the village," the older Hyuuga said, looking at the boy sternly from across the table. Hinata, who sat in between Neji and Hanabi, looked down at her plate, and started to push her two index fingers together repeatedly. A nervous habit she had.

"I hear things about you and some girl I've never met or heard of," Hiashi continued, unaware that he had actually met Kayami at the Chuunin Exams. He continued to eye Neji. "Can you elaborate please?"

Neji felt a familiar need to run out into the middle of the forest and stay in a dark cave until his name was cleared. He had done a pretty good job ignoring stupid questions and comments from the Hidden Leaf genin, and had succeeded in not telling his uncle anything about that day in the hospital, but he should have known he would be found out sooner or later. He frowned, and stared at his dinner plate, unsure of how to answer. Suddenly, Hinata timidly spoke.

"Uh... um... Father," she began, her voice barely audiable. "Uh... I-I met that girl you're talking about today..."

"Hinata, this isn't about that girl," Hiashi said, firmly. "This is about the rumours I'm hearing about your cousin." Hinata was about to insist that this did have something to do with Neji and the rumours, but she decided to wait and listen instead.

Neji started to fiddle with his chopsticks. He really didn't want to tell his uncle of such a humiliating event, so he made things brief. "I had to help a girl at the hospital, and nothing else." Hiashi didn't look convinced.

"Is that all?" he asked. "Today someone came up to me and asked me if I knew that you had kissed a girl, and she ran away." Hiashi added under his breath, "What kind of girl runs from a powerful clan like our's?" Hanabi took one look at Neji and pursed her lips.

"Neji's got a girlfriend!" she taunted playfully. Neji gave his younger cousin a death glare. Hiashi told Hanabi to hold her tongue, and continued to press his nephew for information.

"Haven't you heard of any of these stories, Neji?" he asked. "Hasn't anyone asked you why you-?"

"Um-uh-F-Father," Hinata tried again, surprised that she had dared to interrupt him, causing her to stutter a little more. "I-I actually s-saw the g-girl today, a-and I heard her t-t-tell the truth about e-everything." Hiashi looked at his eldest daughter.

"The truth?" he repeated. "What are you talking about?"

"W-well," Hinata began, still refusing to meet her family's gaze. "I-I was walking with Kiba and Shino today, and Kayami was getting t-teased by these two girls. A-And she said that Neji had only kissed her b-because she had tainted chakra in her system and Neji was the only one who could clear it away by giving her a bit of his own chakra." Hinata finally looked up at her family and saw Hiashi looking confused, Hanabi looking interested, and Neji looking down right uncomfortable. "Neji was only helping her," she continued. "Sh-she also said it wasn't her fault that she was a philophobic."

"A philophobic?" Hiashi repeated. "You mean the girl's scared of falling in love?" Hinata nodded her head shyly.

"I think that's what it means," she said. Hiashi looked back at Neji.

"They found out she was a philophobic after she woke up?" he asked. Neji barely nodded. Hiashi said nothing, but in the privacy of his mind, he thought, _How peculiar. My nephew has an orphaned philophobic longing and avoiding him at the same time. _Though Hiashi still wasn't happy that rumours were centered around someone of his own clan, the Hyuuga leader couldn't help but to smile a little at the thought of such a girl crushing on Neji.


	22. Discoveries and Truths

**Shout out time! Yay! (dances):**

**I-Eat-My-Vegetables: Actually, I've got a forum on fanfiction to thank for the philophobic idea. I can't remember the name of it, but it's on here somewhere**

**KittyLo-chan: Well, keep your eyes pealed for Shika and Shizuka in later chapters. Who knows who might find their way into this story? (shifty eyes)**

**NeferNeferi: Thank you very much :)**

**CandyGirl-chan: Yeah, those girls were mentioned in another story called 'Under the Red Moon' I wrote before this one. They're real meanies and I don't like them either :(**

**--**

I was in my weekly therapy sessions at Gaku's office today, and I wanted nothing more than to disappear into thin air at the time. The psychologist had reached analyzing a part in my life which I didn't want to discuss.

"How about when you were nine?" Gaku asked me from across his desk. "Did anything happen when you were nine?" I felt like taking the clock off the wall and throwing it at him. Was he stupid or what!? Of course something happened when I was nine! My parents died, for God's sake! Didn't Riko tell him that at all between the time they hooked up and now? Or even before that? I asked him this not kindly, but he provided me with a calm explanation.

"Yes, Riko informed me of that dreadful event five years back," Gaku said, nodding.

"Then why are you asking about it!?" I asked, furiously, feeling close to tears. I knew I was being snappy with him, but I was still pretty sensitive about the subject of my parents death.

"I'm asking you because I feel that it will help you," the twenty-six year old said, scribbling down some notes. "It may hurt to talk about, Kayami, but I need to know this if I want to cure you."

"I don't wanna talk about it! I don't ever wanna talk about it!" I said, a lone tear slipping from my eye and rolling down my cheek. I wiped it away and frowned at Gaku, who looked up and me sympathetically.

"I can't imagine what pain your parents' death caused you and your family," he said. "But I need you tell recount that time as accurately as you can if you want to get rid of your philophobia."

I sighed, and leaned back in my chair, my vision blurry now. Gaku looked at me understandingly yet sternly at the same time. I sighed, and wiped some more tears away. There was no way he was letting me get out of here without the full story of my parent's death.

"Okay, I'll tell you," I sighed defeated. "When my parent's died, there was a huge thunderstorm..."

--

The little nine year old girl crouched outside the door to her parent's room which stood slightly ajar, listening to and watching her dying mother and father, and her near-hysteric sister.

"Mom, Dad, isn't there any way that-" Riko began, but Naoki Tsuji interrupted her.

"No, Riko-chan," he said, weakly. "There's no way anyone is going anywhere in a thunderstorm like this... I'll bet the hospital isn't even open considering the hour and the weather..." Seeing her parents and sister in this state made Young Kayami start to weep silently as she continued to watch and listen.

"But, you can't die!" Riko exclaimed, sobbing. "You can't!"

"Riko-chan, shhh..." Emi Tsuji cooed as she took Young Kayami's twenty year old sister's hand. "You'll wake the twins and Kayami."

"There's no avoiding it, dear," Naoki murmured. "Within a couple of minutes... We'll be over and done with..." Young Kayami was barely able to keep her sobs under control. But with the thunder booming outside, and Riko crying inside, no body heard the little girl.

Then, with his last bit of strength, Naoki pushed himself up on his elbows and scooted over to his wife. He leaned over her and said, "My love, we shan't ever depart from each other, even in the Afterlife." Naoki leaned forward and kissed Emi on the lips. "Our last... kiss on in this world..." he added. With that, he lay back down on his pillow and closed his eyes, knowing he was never going to wake up again.

"I love you, Naoki," Emi managed. She took her last breath and said to Riko, "And I love you, Riko-chan, Kayami, and Tabito and Kouta... You're father loves you too. Never forget it, my dear..." And with that, Kayami's mother died.

Riko broke down, and buried her face into her arms on her parents' comforter. Young Kayami broke down and buried her face into her arms on the hard wooden floor, regretting not bursting through the door to say goodbye to her mother and father when she had the chance...

--

Gaku was very serious and silent while he scribbled this story down. He had given me a box of tissues for I wouldn't stop crying while I recounted the event. It reminded me of how much I missed my parents. I reminded myself that they were among the stars and watching over me, and that made me feel a little bit better.

"Kayami," Gaku said, gently. "I think I might've figured out where your philophobia has stemmed from." I sniffed and asked him what he meant.

"I think," Gaku explained, "the reason why you had a panic attack in the hospital was because that boy had been kissing you the way your father kissed your mother before they died." I gaped at Riko's sweetheart, the whole ordeal making perfect sense as he continued to explain it.

"You must know that your mother and father loved each other very much?" Gaku questioned.

"Of course," I answered.

"Witnessing your parent's death must have scarred you, and left you in a state of shock," the psychologist went on. "Usually when phobia's are developed they stem from a traumatic incident where the brain says, 'That's not a good thing, I'm going to be scared of that one thing so that I can keep it from happening to me.' You must have been pretty scared when you fell asleep from that Miyagi jutsu, huh?"

I nodded. "I thought I was dead," I admitted.

"Well, that's exactly why your brain went into panic mode," Gaku told me. "You must have been subconsciously forming a crush on that Hyuuga boy earlier, and waking up to find him kissing you made you realize your love for him, which made your brain realize it could be trouble, which is why you had an anxiety attack."

"But I saw a romance movie recently," I said. "And I had a crush on a boy when I was eight."

"You were nine when your parents died, Kayami, not eight," Gaku pointed out, and I felt stupid. He also said he went to go see _Over Hana's Threshold _with Riko a while ago, and there were no mushy,romanticly dying scenes to trigger my phobia. It all made sense, and it blew my mind. I told Gaku this and he gave me a smile.

"Next week, I'm going to treat you for this fear of your's," he promised.

"Really?" I said, hopefully. Gaku nodded. On that note, we ended my session, and I went home happier than I had been for these past weeks.

--

Team Gai walked from their team's meeting place on their way to complete a C ranked mission they had been assigned that day. Usually Gai and Lee would be running or power walking ahead of Tenten and Neji, but instead they hung back to batter Neji with questions, which was the last thing the boy needed.

"So, Neji, have you seen that girl lately?" Lee asked, curiosity shining in his eyes.

"Lee, I'd rather not do into depth on that subject," Neji replied under his breath. He was in no mood to discuss Kayami with anyone after Hiashi kept asking him about her a couple of nights ago. He would have blamed Hinata for the whole thing, but thanks to her, Hiashi was no longer going on about rumours centering around the Hyuuga family.

"C'mon, Neji!" Gai said, enthusiastically, smiling at him. "You mustn't keep your emotions on bottle up like that- It will make you go crazy!" Gai gave his student and 'understanding' look. "Go on, Neji. Say it. Release your feelings and talk of how you love that beautiful young girl with all your heart! How she's the beacon of light in your darkest hours! How she holds the key to unlock your stoic heart! How she-"

"Uh, Gai-sensei," Tenten interrupted politely. "I couldn't help but to notice that your pace isn't as up beat as usual." Tenten knew she may have sounded rude, but her teacher didn't notice. Gai nearly stopped walking when the girl pointed this out. He immediately switched the subject.

"Tenten's right!" he cried. He turned to Lee. "We have relappssed back into walking slowly! Lee, we must pick up the pace if we want to get stronger." Lee nodded.

"Yes, sensei!" he exclaimed. With that, Gai and Lee took off, Gai telling Neji to spill his 'emotions' to Tenten for now over his shoulder

Neji walked in silence beside his comrade for a while, feeling thoroughly embarrassed and put off. Couldn't anyone just leave him alone anymore? Tenten sensed her team mate's humiliation, and tried to comfort him.

"Hey, don't worry about them," she said, gesturing to Gai and Lee power walking up ahead. "They weren't making fun of you."

"I'm aware of that, Tenten," Neji grumbled. Tenten was silent for a little while until she spoke again after deciding if what she was going to say would get Neji upset or not.

"It's hard for her too," she told her team mate. "If not, even harder." Neji looked at her.

"What?"

"On top of the whole kiss thing Kayami's being recognized as a philophobic." Tenten paused again. "She misses you, you know." Neji didn't say anything at first, for he was a little confused. If Kayami missed him so, why was she blatantly avoiding him like a frightened chipmunk? Tenten explained further.

"She doesn't want to be around you because she's considering you. How you're taking the gossip and whether you're angry with her or not." Tenten faced him seriously. "She's worried about you." Neji gave Tenten a confused look.

"She should be worried about herself," he pointed out.

"She is," Tenten told him. "But she's also concerned about you. Not because she's trying to win you over. Not because she wants to get back in your favour. But because she genuinely cares about you." Tenten hesitated before she added, "Whether you love her back or not." Neji and Tenten walked down the lonely road out of Konoha, bound for the next town over, in an awkward silence until Neji broke it.

"You sound like your both trying to convince me to fall for her and accuse me of something," he said grumpily.

"I'm not!" Tenten insisted. "I swear I'm not, I'm just telling you what I've heard straight from the horse's mouth." She sighed. "She just really misses you, that's all." Neji and Tenten didn't exchange anymore words for the rest of the time they walked. Though, deep down in an undisturbed and undiscovered part of his mind, Neji was missing Kayami's company nearly as much as she missed him.

--

**And there's the next chapter. Sorry for the slow up date. Thanks for being patient, everyone**


	23. Kayami's Plan

**roseandthorns-chan: Thanks for the constructive criticism. You know, I once heard someone say, "Constructive criticism is a writer's most privileged tool". **

**CandyGirl: Heh heh, I agree with you**

**Sakujoed: Thank yah :)**

**Elyana: Thanks **

**KittyLo-chan: Thanks for the review. Hey, are you gonna update I'm No Princess soon? I miss Taka-chan!**

**--**

I walked down the sterile white hospital corridor, keeping a careful eye on my brothers a little ahead of me. I didn't want them bumping into another nurse carrying sharp objects again. The first time was a very close call, and Tabito nearly got cut by a falling scalpel. We didn't want that happening again.

I was spending the day at the hospital with the twins because I had a day off missions and training, Tabito and Kouta had a day off school, but Riko had to work, so she asked my aunt if she would keep an eye on us while she made her rounds at the hospital.

At first I didn't want to go because I was afraid we were going to be a burden on Aunt Aina, and I also thought I was going to be bored out of my skull. But when I got to the hospital, I found it was actually kind of fun. I saw a couple of fellow shinobi, and stopped to say hi and chat. I even saw Lee there.

Lee told me he had that operation, and was making a full recovery. I asked him why he was in the hospital if he was alright now, and he said he was sent on a simple C ranked mission after Tsunade begrudgingly approved of him going despite the closeness of his operation. The mission turned out to be pretty easy and no fighting was involved, but Lee still hurt his leg a little, so Tsunade gave him some pain killers.

Even so, the operation and the mission didn't mix and Lee's leg was still a little screwy. But it was nothing a nurse couldn't touch up with a little jutsu.

While talking to him while he sat on an examination table in one of the doctor's office, trying my best to shut two bored little boys up, Lee asked me if I had seen Neji at all since that day in the hospital. I must've looked rather upset because Lee asked me what was wrong. I told him nevermind and bade him goodbye.

Despite my sadness concerning Neji, I was happy about something: Lee wasn't the only one who had been cured of an affliction.

As Gaku had promised, the day after I told him about my parents, I walked into his office the day after to see him waiting for me with an older looking man with big round spectacles resting on his nose. He was also wearing a Leaf bandanna tied around his arm. Gaku told me the man's name was Daisuke Inoue, and he was a psychiatrist/medic shinobi who knew a thing or two about curing people of their phobias.

Inoue had asked me to take a few deep breaths and close my eyes while I lay on a couch in the office. I did as I was told, and if I had my eyes open, I would have seen that he was sign weaving. I still had my eyes closed when he pressed his palm to my forehead, and his other hand on the back of my head. I suddenly felt as if water had filled my system until I was on the verge of exploding. I realized soon that it was Inoue's chakra. Before I could explode with his chakra though, I felt it drain back out of my opening points in no time. With that simple jutsu, I had my phobia sucked out of me. Don't ask me how he did it with that technique, but he did it alright.

I had been very grateful to both my sister's boyfriend and Inoue. Riko had been too. Though I had tried to spread the word that I had been cured the fact remained that I still had been afraid of love, so it was going a little slow, but at least some people knew.

But thankfully for me, people gossiping about your's truly had been put on hold because another scandalous thing happened a couple of days ago: Sasuke Uchiha, this year's number one rookie and Tenten's (slight) crush, had left the village seeking power from Orochimaru. People had been buzzing about that and forgotten me for a while, and although it was dreadful business, I was relieved everyone had stopped talking about me.

"Where's Aunt Aina?" Kouta asked while he fiddled with one of his many ninja action figures in his hand. "I'm bored!"

"You can't bug Aunt Aina with your games now, she's busy," I said, glancing around at the hospital corridor. "I'm going to ask her where the play room is for you two, and we'll just stay there until lunch time." The boys and I continued down the hallway until we passed a vacant room with a bunch of medical shinobi in it, standing and talking to someone. That someone was my aunt. She was giving instructions to the group of medics.

I approached the door which stood slightly ajar and waited outside until Aina was done speaking to the medics. While leaning against the wall with Tabito and Kouta, I heard Aina's voice through the door, and I couldn't help but listening.

"... had already told us that he knew for sure that three genin are severely injured," she was saying. "He didn't specify, but I would say if you kept heading for the Sound Village the way they went, you'll find them." Aina sighed. "Honestly, I don't think that was a smart move of the Fifth: Sending five genin after a missing ninja." My ears twitched and I dared to creep a little closer to the door.

"I'm sure we'll be able to help them," an optimistic medic named Iashi said. "I mean, they are very skilled despite their level: Especially genin like Shikamaru Nara, Naruto Uzumaki, and Neji Hyuuga."

I felt an icy hand grip my heart. Neji had been sent to go after Sasuke? I had dismissed his absence from my sight as me avoiding him, but I hadn't known that he went after that traitor. I began to fret at once. What if he was one of the injured genin? What if he was one of the _severely_injured genin. What if...?

No. I couldn't let myself lose my mind over this. Neji was very able and adept, and I felt ashamed for not having more faith in him. I eventually convinced myself that he was alright until another medic shinobi named Mogusa said, "I heard they had to take on a group of Sound ninja known as the Sound Four. Did you see Genma and Raido when they came back from that fight with them? They barely made it to the hospital. If it weren't for Shizune, I don't know what would have happened to them!"

More panic over came me. Genma and Raido were very skilled chuunin, and as I though back, I remember Aunt Aina saying she was taking care of two badly hurt chuunin as well as some of the genin. I must have looked pretty terrified because Tabito looked up at me and told me that I was really white.

I felt my knees begin to tremble. Skilled as Neji was, I knew the two chuunin had come back in an awful state, and I couldn't imagine what these people, 'The Sound Four', could do to a fourteen year old boy. I didn't know what to think. I tried to think of something else, trying to block the adults' voice from my ears, but no prevail. Neji could be out of the country and fatally wounded. I just felt so idle standing there, safe behind Konoha's walls, having no idea what was happening to him.

"I'll be right back- I forgot my iodine," came Houshou's voice as he walked towards the room's exit. I pressed myself against the wall, behind the door, and Houshou opened it wider and left the room, walking down the hallway, not seeing me. A thought entered my brain, and if I had kept my head, I wouldn't have even thought of attempting it, but I was bored, worried, and scared for the boy I loved. Not even thinking about whether my scheme would even work or not, I turned to the boys.

"Tabito, Kouta," I said, trying to hide the worry in my voice. "Can you do something for me?"

"Sure," Kouta said. "What's wrong, Kayami?"

"Nothing," I said, quickly. "Listen, I want you to follow Houshou and tell him Hotaka Takehada threw up his lunch and that you can't find a nurse- He'll go find one or tell you were to find one. Whatever happens, just try and stall him!" Hotaka Takeda was a random civilian who was suffering from a brutal upset stomach. The two innocent boys nodded, and walked off after Houshou after I convinced them nothing was up with me.

Taking a deep breath, I made a quick hand sign and moulded my chakra a bit after two minutes. I muttered a simple jutsu and transformed into Houshou within a puff of smoke. Making sure I looked exactly like the medic, I walked into the room, and nodded to my "fellow shinobi".

"Okay, I have my iodine, let's go," I said. With a nod, and a turn of our heels, I followed the medical ninja out of the hospital, and towards the village's gates.

I was lucky I hadn't done much training today and had quite a bit of chakra in me so I could hold the illusion, but the Sound Village was a long way away, would I be able to keep up my disguise? And while I bounded through the trees with the medics guilt and worry twisted my insides. What if everyone eventually saw through my disguise? What would happen to me if they did? How much trouble would I be in? And the question that bothered me the most was, Is Neji okay?


	24. Lost and Found

**Wow, so sorry for the snail-like update and the hiatus. I got caught up in another fanfiction, and school's been a bother. I could list a dozen excuses for why I was so slow, but I'm sure you'd like to get to the story, so here it is. Sorry once again**

**NOTE: For those who haven't read my previous story, Under The Red Moon, I must warn you that an OC from that story is mentioned in this chapter. If you want to know just the basics about her, all you have to do is read a bit of the first chapter. You don't have to, it's just a suggestion. **

--

I followed the band of medics through the trees of the forest, biting my lip as I went. I wasn't even thinking about whether the so-called Sound Four was among the trees around me or not, for I was too preoccupied with thoughts of Neji. As I continued to follow the medics, one young man beside me, Kanpou, turned to me and said, "Hey, Houshou, you're really quiet. Usually you'd be shouting out orders, and bossing us around."

I didn't even look at him. I stared dead ahead with my mouth sealed shut. Anxiety prevented me from answering him.

Thirty minutes passed by before anyone else said anything. The silence was broken when Iashi called from the front, "Look! I see someone!" With my insides squirming, I turned my head to see who Iashi was talking about.

In a small clearing, leaning against the tree, was one of the genin who graduated after me, Chouji Akamichi. He didn't look like his normal self at all. His now loose fitting clothes hung off his weary, thin figure that was covered in cuts, bruises, scratches, and marks. He looked awful.

I followed the medics down onto the forest floor and approached Chouji. He looked even worse up close. Iashi picked up the boy's limp, left arm, and pressed two fingers against his wrist.

"I can barely feel a pulse," he said, concerened. "If we don't get this kid back to the village soon, we might be too late."

Iashi's words terrified me. I looked at Chouji and thought about whether Neji was in a state like he was, or whether he was already dead or not.

Tears welled up in my eyes at the thought of the Hyuuga boy dead. I stood rooted to the ground for a minute as the water in my eyes blurred my vision, and my cheeks became warm. One of the medics looked at me.

"Houshou, what's wrong?" he asked.

_I'm not Houshou, _I thought as I began to sniffle. _I am Kayami Tsuji, who's looking for Neji Hyuuga._

Suddenly, as if driven by a unseen force, I decided I couldn't wait for the others to tend to Chouji, and decided to go after Neji on my own. Wiping my tears away, I quickly leaped into the air and bounded through the trees, hearing the other medical shinobi calling after me.

As I surged through the foliage, I could hear Kanpou and Iashi chasing after me. But I wouldn't slow down. I wouldn't look back at them. There was only one face in my mind right now.

Before long, I grew weary and needed to save some of my chakra, so, regrettably, I discontinued my disguise, and in a puff of smoke, I became fourteen year old Kayami Tsuji once again. I ignored the surprised cries and yells from Iashi and Kanpou, and picked up my speed. I scanned through the branches and leaves for any sign of life as I jumped through the forest with two medics on my tail. Just as I was about to give up and stop jumping, I saw someone lying on their side in the middle of a clearing from the trees.

The boy was my age; had long, brown hair that was now unbound; a torn, tattered, bloody jacket on; no headband on his forehead; and unwound bandages hanging from his arm.

My heart stopped beating when I realized that the boy was Neji. I stopped jumping from tree to tree and let myself fall toward the clearing, unaware of what I was doing, my eyes glued to his still figure. Finally, after a rough but upright landing on the ground, I felt my heart start to beat furiously. It hammered against my ribcage, trying to burst through. It beat at an impossible speed. It made me weak. I fell to my knees, clapped my hands over my mouth, and screamed into my hands like a banshee.

Kanpou and Iashi had caught up to me, and they landed in the clearing a little away from me and Neji. They must have been confused to see me leaning over, screaming and crying into my hands while Neji lay fatally wounded on the forest floor.

Sobbing, I crawled over to the near-dead boy and gently pushed him onto his back, ignoring Kanpou and Iashi's yelling for me to not touch him. I gasped when I saw that a horrible, bloody puncture wound had left Neji practically without a shoulder. The wound was so big I could've put my hand right through him. But it had missed his heart. Thank God, it had missed his heart.

Still, I couldn't cope with seeing Neji in such a state. With a fresh wave of tears rolling down my cheeks, I sat the limp boy up as softly as I could, leaned him against my body, and wrapped my arm around his torso, sobbing as his head flopped onto my shoulder a little.

Kanpou and Iashi approached me slowly. I paid them no heed, and said to myself as I struggled to hold up Neji's floppy body, "Such a waste... Such a waste of a good ninja and a good friend." I looked up at the two medics pitifully, not knowing what I wanted from them.

Gently, Iashi took my hand, and pulled me away as Kanpou took Neji from my arms and began to check for non existent vital signs.

"Come with me, Missy," he said, over my sobs. He began to lead me out of the clearing. "Don't worry about him- He'll be okay."

I reluctantly followed, but did not take my eyes off of Neji and Kanpou until they disappeared from my sight in a thicket of leaves and branches.

--

When I got back to the hospital, Iashi told my aunt where I had gone, and she told Riko, who practically skinned me alive. She grounded me for a year, and gave me this _huge_ lecture on responsibility and rational thinking. I didn't blame her. I did something very stupid, but I didn't seem to care.

Tabito and Kouta got in trouble for covering for me too, but not as much as me. They were still upset, though.

Not only did Riko kill me, the Fifth Hokage herself did too. She gave me a lecture similar to Riko's except it was scarier. Lady Tsunade sure could yell. She asked me whether or not I even _thought _of the danger I was putting myself in, and whether I thought about what would happen if I got caught by enemy ninja. My punishment for my actions was no missions for a whopping two months, and I was not to leave the village for anything.

Everyone being angry with me didn't stop me from visiting the hospital after Neji and the other injured genin were brought back from their failed attempt to retrieve Sasuke.

One of the nurses, Kaori, had told me that Neji was alive, but was in a very unstable condition. He was busy getting intensive medical attention when I arrived, and I didn't want to leave until he was out. I waited by the ER with worry pestering me from every angle, wondering if he was going to be okay.

I sat across from one of the genin who had gone after Sasuke, Shikamaru Nara, who had his finger in a splint. A couple of seat down from me sat that Sand genin, Temari, who had defeated Tenten unfairly in the Chuunin Exams. She had apparently saved Shikamaru's life, but I promptly ignored her anyway. Not that I really wanted to talk to anyone. I planned to sit here until I heard news about Neji.

I twiddled my thumbs, half listening to Shikamaru and Temari talk, when a noise behind me snapped me from my thoughts. I turned around in my seat to see Shikamaru's father, and a girl a little younger than me walk into the room. The girl gasped and ran over to Shikamaru and sat down beside him, looking worriedly at his broken finger.

"Hi, Shizuka," Shikamaru muttered in a monotone.

Shizuka Kobayashi was a girl who had moved to the Leaf village from the Moon village a while ago. I heard the story from the genin in Konaha: Apparently she was on Shikamaru's team for a while, and they liked each other, and were now dating. I also heard that she was a mute, and communicated by writing her thoughts down on a piece of paper. I watched as Shizuka fretted over Shikamaru with envy filling my system.

_Fortunate girl, _I thought. _The boy you love has but a hurt finger. Mine might be dead. _I gazed at the floor and tried to fight back the dread that washed over me. I glanced at the clock. I had been sitting here for three hours and I still hadn't received any news about Neji. That bothered me.

I watched as Shikamaru got up and left the two girls sitting, and he proceeded to walk out of the room when his father stopped him. I listened as his dad gave him hell about being a coward, which didn't make very much sense to me, but then again, I wasn't listening very closely to their previous discussion.

Suddenly, Lady Tsunade walked into the room, announcing that Chouji was all right. I didn't react to her words, for it was not Chouji I was worried about. Shortly afterwards, Shizune came running into the waiting room.

"Tsunade-sama! Neji Hyuuga's condition has stabilized!" she said excitedly through pants. She looked very worn out but happy none the less.

Shizune's words brought me to my feet, and I felt my spirit soar. I couldn't believe it. I was so relieved to know that he was okay.

I was about to ask Shizune if Neji would be able to see people now, even though I knew he just recovered from a serious injury and needed rest, but Tsunade talking to Shikamaru stopped me.

"Shikamaru, you're mission may have been a failure," she said, gently. "But everyone's all right. That's all that matters."

Shikamaru's body began to shake, and I heard him say in a constricted voice, "Next time, I'll show that I can do it flawlessly." I was surprised to find myself watching a teenage boy crying. I couldn't see the tears, but I heard him sob, and I saw him raise a hand to wipe his tears away. Temari just watched him, and Shizuka got up from her seat and hugged him from the behind, her arms snaking around his waist. Shikamaru didn't turn around but I saw him drop his hand down to his waist and give Shizuka's hand a squeeze.

I watched the pair, and I felt even more jealousy overcome me. I wanted so badly to hug Neji like that. One could have said I got the chance when I held him up when I found him in the forest, but it wasn't the same. Neji was unconscious, bloody, ragged, and I was crying when I 'hugged' him. I wanted to embrace him when he was awake and well so that he could hug me back. Tearing my eyes away from Shizuka and Shikamaru, I turned back to Shizune who seemed to know who I was already.

"You're the girl who's been waiting around for Neji, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered in a broken voice, and my throat began to burn.

Shizune looked at me sympathetically. "He's not ready for visitors yet. Go back home and get some rest. You can come and see him tomorrow."

Reluctantly, I dragged my body home, but I left my mind back in the hospital, thinking only of Neji Hyuuga and no one else.

--

**Once again, I am so sorry I didn't update sooner. Hope this might make up for it**


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